Editing Dokuhakihime to Hoshi no Ishi: Prologue

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==Prologue - The Temple of Stars==

God is omniscient. When the sun sets, faint slivers of many stars emerge from the dark skies. His fingers place shining stones on the veil of this deep blue night; they paint on a canvas that answers nearly all questions human beings could ever wish to know.

The small kingdom of Vion always relied on astrology and magical stones to divine its national policies. The shrine which had been erected to study the celestial movements was considered a holy site, but also a forbidden ground where secret rituals took place.

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Access to the deepest recesses of the shrine was restricted to Seers, but presently a young maiden was brought into this scene.

From her petite stature, one could tell she was still an adolescent. However, she looked starved to point of illness and her clothes were in utter tatters, certainly not clean. She was placed at heart of the dim chamber in the center of a magic spell. Her hands and feet were bound with coarse rope and a gag had been stuffed in her mouth. Her groans sounded hardly human. They were much more like a beast’s.

The penetrating glare of her eyes gleamed through the cracks between her tangled black hair, an utter mess as wild as a wasteland.

“I can’t believe this girl is actually…” A seer cloaked in a black robe murmured. The seer that stood next to him spoke:

“Even if it’s hard to believe she’s a human being… look at her Star Stone.”

The prone body of the young maiden convulsed uneasily and the stone that hung from her neck fell to the floor, giving a stiff clunk as it struck the ground. The glowing bonfire underneath the stone illuminated its glossy surface—a dark color, and riddled with impurities that seemed to emit scattered rays of faint light.

The seer who examined this reported gravely:

“A turbid green with faint streaks of fiery scarlet… it’s unmistakable, even if her present condition is as lamentable as it is.”

Just at that moment, the gag loosened from the maiden’s mouth. With her newly regained freedom, she began screaming:

“Let me go! These shitfaced fucknuts!”

The anguish in her voice was sharp and unpleasant. Her bitter voice reverberated against the tall ceilings of the shrine.

Intimidated by her shrieks, the seers backed away half a step.

The maiden tumbled onto the floor, yet she continued to shout.

“You fucked up seers! Worthless senile smegheads, tell me this fucking instant what the hell I’m doing here!”

<em>If you want to screw a prostitute, then go to the red-light district!</em>—the young maiden spat and raved at the seers, shouting with extremely revolting language. Some of the seers’ faces contorted with distress, others gaped with wide eyes, while others plugged their ears. These reactions were not visible, hidden as they were under their long black robes, but the loathsome and abhorred maiden did not cease her barrage.

“Please speak more tactfully… my princess.”

Amongst the group of frightened seers, a lone seer took a step closer towards the maiden.

Polished stones, just like the one the maiden had, hung from the waists of all their robes.

The maiden’s cheeks had smacked against the floor earlier, and now she was slowly picking up her head. Even though she couldn’t formulate what to say, she continued to hiss at the seers.

“Princess? Who you talking about?”

She sneered. Her lips were cracked from hunger and the bitter cold, oozing bright red blood.

“If you say I’m a princess, then please tell me something. <em>Who</em> was it that dumped me in a shady ditch, abandoning me in those alley slums as a baby?”

Honestly, that wasn’t within the extent of her memories. It was impossible for her to remember. The young maiden was abandoned long before she had any memories of anything else. However, she had heard the whispers and rumors of the people who lived in the alleys: “That girl was ditched by the shrine here, cuz it's what the stars said.”

The seer nodded, acknowledging it, but he also seemed to ridicule and mock those words.

“We honestly didn’t have a choice back then. It’s all in accordance to—”

“Because God and the Stars decreed it?”

The young maiden gave a “Hah!” of shrieking laughter and toppled over on the floor.

“It’d be better if this kingdom burned to the ground!”

The princess despondently cursed the destruction of their country, and all the seers breathed similar sighs of despair.

The hopeless expression of the seers and unhappiness of the young maiden.

“It’d be better if this kingdom burned to the ground! You’re all a bunch of fucking raving lunatics! Since you’ve abandoned me, don’t come back looking for me! I’m the one who’s gonna ditch this shitty country.”

The seer that faced her responded calmly.

“It cannot be so, dear princess.”

“That’s not my fucking name!”

“Elsa · Viontine.”

The maiden’s words stopped abruptly when she heard herself called that. Her face contorted, suddenly brimming with uncontrollable anger and hatred.

“So my name is… Elsa.”

The maiden finally understood. That name the people in the alleys called her really was the true name she had been christened with at birth.

While she was growing up on the streets, she had always assumed the drunkards, who jeered at her for being a princess who was abandoned by the shrine, were pulling stupid flat lies out of their arse.

But these seers had called her a princess. Now she knew, these guys—these seers who had captured her from those rotten alleys really had once abandoned her there.

“What do you want… from me?”

Elsa asked the seers, almost like she was groaning.

Abandoned immediately after her birth, and now dragged back to the shrine—there was no way this was going to be good news.

“The God and the Stars who watch over our country have bestowed upon you a new destiny.”

“Another prophecy?”

Elsa’s manner of speech brimmed with mocking and cynical laughter. She ridiculed the seers and she ridiculed the entire country.

Vion was a small country, and this country was shackled by these seers.

“A grave omen, graver than any we’ve had before, has appeared over Vion.”

“So what about it? This kingdom is already so fucking mad, it’d be no surprise if it went up in flames any moment now. With peabrains like yours, this country rotted to shit ages ago.”

Elsa had seen through everything. If these seers wanted her to be a sacrificial slaughter-piece for the nation, she wouldn’t have been surprised. She had given herself up to despair and she didn’t care anymore. However, the next thing the seers said went far beneath her expectations.

“By the will of the gods, you will be married off to an ally nation to save our kingdom.”

Elsa stared at the seers after hearing this, at a complete loss.

“Marriage…?”

Elsa repeated this word, stumbling over it like it was a foreign language.

As if to reaffirm her words, a seer continued:

“The allied country is Red Ark, which has the allegiance of the Holy Knight. You will be married to that country’s crown prince to conclude an intimate bond between Vion and Red Ark.”

The seer’s speech was very dignified as he presented to her information that had been determined long ago.

“Though I don’t know what sort of confusion caused the regrettable accident you faced long ago, your marriage will unquestionably help the future of this country.”

The seer’s words simply flew over Elsa’s ears.

“...You’re… You’re going to marry me?! Where? On <i>your</i> request?”

Hahaha… Dry laughter dribbled out of her mouth. Her disarrayed mess of hair shook on the floor. They trembled like violent waves, and before long Elsa’s high-pitched laugher turned into an abrupt wretched cry:

“Don’t fuck with me!”

She thrashed her bound hands against the floor.

“Fuck marriage! Fuck princesses! Who the hell do you think I am? What do you think you did to me? Who the fuck am I? Don't kid me, a princess? I’m your bitch, aren’t I? This country’s slave? You shitfaced despicable seers, if you say those prophecies are real, why don’t you bring the God of Stars down here and show me? I’ll murder Him. That’ll be my offering to God and the Stars! I’ll rip His throat out this instant!”

Even after living the life of a beggar.

She had never, ever, been humiliated like this before.

The seer ignored her malicious cursing and continued:

“...In this regard, we intend to let you live the life of a princess from now on.”

“Not before I fucking kill you!”

These words weren’t merely a threat. She was filled with murderous intent. However, the seer seemed hardly affected even the slightest.

They stood there, silent like a dark forest, unresponsive to Elsa’s curses. They probably figured that it was impossible for Elsa, who was powerless, to kill them.

Elsa rigidly smiled and spoke:

“You want me to live like a princess? And then get married to a prince? Oh my, aren’t I supposed to count my <em>wonderful</em> blessings~?”

Why was she born in this kind of country? Elsa kept repeating this in her heart. Why did she have to let other people or the God of Stars to determine her fate?

Could it be it that her meaning of her life was prescribed there? An immutable destiny carved into the starry night sky?

“Fine, I’ll do it. If you want me to get married, be a princess, or whatever, I’ll do it—but I’m gonna wreck things up so fucking badly it’ll be utter chaos. Watch me. I’ll never forgive you.”

With how she spat words with a hateful tongue and dilated eyes, she looked like a witch, or perhaps an old crone. The seers looked at each other in dismay, especially after those ominous threats. They whispered in each others ears.

“I guess it was too difficult after all…”

“We can’t marry her off if she’s like that.”

“It’s impossible.”

“Agreed.”

Soon afterwards, they surrounded Elsa in formation and prepared their magic.

“What the hell… are you doing…?”

She hadn’t an ounce of energy let to resist. She was too powerless. The only weapon that she could depend on was her relentless bitter tongue, backed up by her uneducated yet keenly incisive brain.

Just then—the seers whispered softly.

“We will take away—”

“Snatch away her words.”

“As long as we steal her voice, she’ll have no way to exercise that cursed and despicable tongue.”

Elsa realized it.

After she was abandoned not long after her birth, she had picked up the foulest language without the slightest shred of dignity.

A blazing fire flickered in the pupils of her eyes. A deeply chilling feeling of subtle despair creeped up on her, making her shoulders shiver.

She was bound in the center of this magic spell, and the seers had full control over her. Soon, an endless torrent of howling curses replaced her prior lamentations.

“I curse you all. I curse you, I curse you, I curse you! I curse you with all my soul! With my name as the Poison-Breathing Princess, I curse you! The stars are getting entombed! The light’s fading! Life is being stifled! This country of fucking lunatic seers, let them burn! Let this place become a living hell!”

Until the last moment before her voice was stolen from her, Elsa’s lips were pouring with unrelenting hatred.

Having come into this world as a princess, she should have been wrapped in silk at birth. But she had never ever received the love of this country, and she certainly never loved this country the slightest.

Ever since her birth, she cursed her country, she cursed the world, so people came to call her—

The Poison-Breathing Princess of Vion, the Kingdom of Seers.

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==Translator's Notes and References==
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