Sentimentalities.

Depths of Hollow Earth

In a forgotten corner of Hollow Earth, in a cavern lit by the sickly glow of giant mushrooms and the distant glow of magma veins, lay Nyx. The Queen of Eternal Night, she who had aspired to reap the fear of a planet, was now a diminished figure, her chaotic power shriveled, her ethereal form flickering like a flame about to be extinguished. Poimandres, her titanic Chaos dragon, rested nearby, a mountain of wounded shadows, its many eyes closed in a recuperative lethargy. The battle against Cthulhu and his Luciferian Netlin heralds had shattered them, forcing a humiliating flight to this primordial sanctuary.

Nyx felt her strength draining away. Every pulse of her being was a struggle. She closed her eyes, and in the darkness of her weakness, memories, those lingering ghosts of a former life, began to seep through the cracks in her Chaos-hardened consciousness.

She saw herself, not as Nyx, but as Eleonora, the Master of Umbra. The scent of ancient parchment, dried herbs, and the faint magic that permeated the Great Library enveloped her like a warm, forgotten embrace. She saw the young, expectant faces of her students, the light of curiosity in their eyes as she unraveled the mysteries of alchemy or the intricacies of defensive enchantments. She remembered the quiet satisfaction of watching a young mind grasp an arcane concept, the silent joy of guiding an inexperienced hand in the weaving of a spell. It was a life of order, of purpose, of... light, in its own way.

The classes... she thought, and a pang of something painfully resembling nostalgia pierced her present being. The comforting weight of the grimoires, the whisper of quills on paper, the intellectual challenge in the eyes of a brilliant student...

One memory in particular emerged with vivid and painful clarity. One afternoon, after a particularly difficult class on channeling elemental energies, many students had left, frustrated or exhausted. But one young figure, with hair like an unruly flame and green eyes filled with a mixture of confusion and fierce determination, had remained behind. Aria.

Eleonora remembered her struggling with her innate power, that chaotic, empathic magic that threatened to overwhelm her. She had approached the girl, who sat on the floor, her head in her hands.

"I can't do this, Master Eleonora," the young Aria had whispered, her voice cracking with frustration. "It's... it's too much. I feel it consuming me, burning me from the inside. I'm not like the others."

Eleonora remembered kneeling beside her, gently brushing a strand of hair away from Aria's anguished face. There was a purity in that struggle, an honesty in that fear, that moved her deeply.

"Magic is not a beast to be tamed with whip and bridle, Aria," she had told her softly, her hand resting briefly on the young woman's shoulder. "It is a mighty river. Sometimes, yes, it threatens to overflow its banks. But you must not fight its current with all your might, for it will exhaust you and sweep you away. You must learn to feel its flow, to understand its nature, to guide it with your intention, with your heart. Your power is immense, it is true, unlike that of many. But so is the strength of your spirit, the compassion I see in your eyes. Trust in that. Trust in yourself."

She remembered the way Aria had looked at her then, with such absolute vulnerability and trust that her chest had tightened with unexpected emotion. In those green eyes, Eleonora hadn't just seen a promising student; she'd seen a reflection of her own lost youth, a thirst for knowledge and belonging, but also a fragility she longed to protect with an almost maternal ferocity.

In that instant, Nyx thought, and Eleonora's consciousness within her groaned with the memory, she wasn't just my most gifted student. She was... something more. A spark I longed to see grow into a radiant, confident flame. I felt a care so deep, so... pure. Almost like a mother's for her daughter. The feeling of that love, that protective longing, was now a torment, an echo of a light she herself had betrayed and extinguished in her quest for power.

The memory faded, leaving Nyx shivering in the cold darkness of the cavern. The contrast between the warmth of that moment in Umbria and her current icy reality was unbearable. The warmth of that maternal affection was now a burn that her chaotic power could not heal.

"Sentimentality..." hissed the part of her that was Nyx, the Dark Queen, trying to stifle the pain. "Remnants of a dead life, of a weakness I can no longer afford."

But the echo of Aria's laughter, the feel of her small hand clutching at hers for guidance, lingered. For a moment, the mask of The Queen of Chaos shattered, and only Eleonora, the teacher, the mentor, remained, weeping silently for a lost daughter and for the monster she had become. Nostalgia was a sweet and bitter poison, reminding her of everything she had sacrificed on the altar of an ambition that had now brought her to the brink of annihilation.