[h3]The [color=9e0b0f]Red[/color] Queen[/h3]
[hr]

[b](Historical Figure)[/b]

Having expunged upon possible causes for the Cataclysm, I thought I would move on to a popular tale here within Reln; "The Red Queen".

[right][i]"The moon, the moon, the chained moon. The red, the red, the red rivulets. Can you hear it? The dragging. The scrapping. She comes, ready for your blood. She's mad; she won't listen to your pleas. She'll cackle, all the while, as the bone atop your brain is crushed all the same. She wants it, you know; your blood. It's her nectar, the one thing to keep her eternally young. So she'll come, arms limp behind her, dragging her chained moon; ready to strike while you're away, away from your mother's embrace; the comforts of the hearth. So children, if you ever see the moon -- the red orbulette so far above in the clouds -- run, run as fast as you can to your mother's arms, for she can be the only one to save you from the Red Queen's embrace..."[/i]

-from the [b]Compendium of Relnish Oral Traditions[/b]
by [i]Scholar Ibiz Arlock[/i][/right]

Childhood tales aside, the Red Queen is an enigma in the history books, yet a mystery which has been partially solved if not only through hearsay and half-true rumors.

First off, I'll address why she is such a shadow on Reln's history. A woman believed to be the lover of the old [b]Emperor Haldisfar[/b], and mirroring many of his characteristics: the madness; her status as a [b]chained one[/b] with a chain said to be long enough to have bound the moon; her ardent belief in [color=steelblue]Mogaes[/color], the God of Death, whose teachings are held within the Fourth Soul; as well as her lust for battle. The last of these, had been her downfall, as she was the last general to wage war on the [b]Abandoned Continent[/b]; the [b]Dragon Armament[/b] there wiping any and all from [i]living[/i] memory as well as written [i]record[/i].

So how do we know of her existence as an actual figure, you may be asking. Tales, for as little truth as can be found in them, were not altered as history texts had, nor were they stricken from memory. And [color=steelblue]spirits[/color], they are seemingly not affected as they spend the rest of their eternity acting out the last moments of their lives. One such site where a mass of such beings can be found is one of the few distinguishable landmarks left on the [b]Abandoned Continent[/b], the [color=steelblue]Red Queen's Forest[/color]; a place where the spirits reside within the [b]Many-Eyed Oak Trees[/b] of the woods. The dead soldiers there still whisper, still play out the slaughter that had taken place amongst the trees.

Wherever the scarce information may come, the Red Queen is always associated with this primal fear, as she is now a terror without face or factual knowledge; just tales of dead men and those we still tell our children at night.

[right][b]Records of a Trapped Man[/b]
[i]by Deles Tro, the Traveler[/i][/right]