Galdarion's Exodus

It was a love they say occurs once in a generation. The kind of love one could not help but feel when they were in its presence. The kind of love that made the people around it better. It was a love that all said would persevere through death. And unfortunately, they were right.

Queen Dulce Haldev and Queen Eve Galdarion dedicated their lives to one another, and to the nation they had fought to unite under a single banner, in 829. They dwarves have a saying, "The bloodier the war, the longer the peace," and if it were ever true, it was true for the "Dwain Blade," and the peace the two women brought to the kingdom of Lyr'Lowain (Eternal Song in the common tongue). 

Dulce and Eve, as terrible a foe as one could fear to meet on the field of battle, were as passionate towards one another as they were to their campaign for unification. Those unwilling to bend the knee were made to. And with each victory, their passions grew to infatuations, and in time, that infatuation matured into love. And their love established the greatest Elven kingdom Vault had ever known. And it would have grown ever larger.

In 845, sixteen years after Lyr'Lowain became the banner under which most elves swore fealty, Dulce Haldev took her own life.

She left behind her loving partner, and now sole Queen of Lyr'Lowain, Eve, as well as their son, Orrin, a mere eighteen years of age. Eve's grief was unimaginable. The kingdom grieved but behind the tears sat a dark thought that could not be extinguished. What had driven a woman so in love and so in power to take herself from the world. What did the people not know about their lost Queen, or what did they not know about her widow?

Over the next two years, as sadness subsided, suspicion remained. In her sorrow, Eve's rule fell to Orrin, whose inexperience and hesitancy to take the mantel made for a decline in prosperity and an opportunity for vultures. He surrounded himself with all the wrong sort of people, and the people felt the sting of a beloved matriarch gone and a system set against them in her place.

But none of this mattered to Eve. She became uncommunicative. A shut in. Whispers began of her consorting with dark beings. Evil arts. The whispers became rumors, and the rumors became facts. And as Orrin, through ignorance and naiveté, fell victim to the title of despot, his mother fell victim to the title of witch. A title the elves do not idly apply.

And so it was in 850, five years after the death of her life's love, Eve Galdarion, long ago foregoing her title and right to rule, brought Dulce Haldev back from the dead.

The fallout was devastating. Eve returned to form, a more striking and powerful figure than even her days on the battlefield. But she was much changed. Where once existed an unassailable confidence now lived a devout arrogance. Where once she pierced with a gaze, Eve Galdarion now frightened with a glance. The rumors about dark powers seemed undeniable. But for better or worse, Orrin had spent five years in power and was not willing to lay it at the feet of a mother he barely recognized.

And what of Dulce? Some spoke of watching the Dwain Blade walk once again, arm in arm, through the withered gardens of their palace on cloudless nights. Some saw her, skin sallow and sickly, perusing markets, never speaking, barely lifting her head. It became clear that this was a mere echo of the Dulce Haldev who once ruled them. A shadow. And thus did the elves of Lyr'Lowain turn against their once beloved Queen, Eve Galdarion.

The outcry for Orrin and his sycophants to exile his mother was tremendous. But while Orrin had become a husk of a man in the wake of those who controlled him, he retained at least his love for his mothers. Yes, that he still had in droves. And so for the next several decades, he suffered Eve to live within the palace, to parade Dulce to the people, and use the resources allotted for a Queen. And use them she did.

Over those terrible years, many people in Lyr'Lowain reported missing deceased, empty tombs, and battlefields with fewer corpses than made sense. The ghastly truth soon came to light. Galdarion's Gift it was called. It rained that day; the day Eve Galdarion marched over seven hundred walking corpses from the palace grounds into the city to reunite with families, friends, and loved ones. It was a scene from a storybook. This dark Queen, draped in midnight silk, arms wide as though welcoming a new world to Lyr'Lowain, stood atop a balcony to a temple to a forgotten god, and ushered in the end of life as elvenkind knew it.

What followed was the breaking of Orrin's heart as the people of Lyr'Lowain, repulsed and disgusted with Galdarion's Gift, called for the removal of his entire family. They began burning the undead among them. Not out of anger. Not out of spite. But in tears. With sorrow. For many, it was the second time they would lose a child, a father, a wife.

Orrin knew he could no longer house the monster his mother had become. He gave her a choice. Forsake her obsession with necromancy. Forego her love of living death. Do this, and she would stay, a prisoner within the palace. It was that or be put to the sword for her crimes.

Eve Galdarion chose a third option. With the power gained through her years of anger and grief, she used her remaining horde to stampede through the city, slaughtering as they went, crazed and spiteful at the peasants who did not appreciate what she had given them. And at her side rode her wife. Dwain Blade, one alive, one not, but perhaps both dead, lead the masses of undead out of Lyr'Lowain and across the River Lyric, into Core Vandal.

It is there, in Galdarion Forest, she remains. But her mastery of death has only improved since those thousand years ago. And the purity and moral superiority the elves of Lyr'Lowain once claimed did not last. Many wishing to overcome death followed their Queen into the west, and those that left were ordered never to return.

When all was done, thousands of elves followed the woman who claimed eternal life, and the act of necromancy has become even more reviled in the land of the eternal song. Now Eve Galdarion's kingdom is one of prosperity and plenty, where the living and dead reside in harmony. And the two nations burn with a hatred that will outlive them all.