"What is Past…is Prologue…"

-William Shakespeare-

Darkness… Darkness engulfs silence and silence engulfs the man, the one lost in a world without light and without sound. The man has no choice but to move deeper and deeper, till they reach their very core, till their eyes stare somewhere within their soul and see themselves; from a completely different angle. This was how it was to Phobos as well. Inside the darkness of his cell, Phobos was calm. He did not know how many years he had spent in it (perhaps the same many as he spent falling into endless space). Surely it was a nice change to have a steady ground beneath his feet and a roof upon his head; a determined space to which he was sure he existed and not the endless abyss to which he was constantly falling and falling with not a single clue of the time and space he was… He had chose this fate himself so he would be free, so he wouldn't be captured like a rat in a cage, so he wouldn't give to some helpless brats the satisfaction of seeing him behind some prison's door of Kandrakar for one more time. However he realized that the outer space was a prison on its own; it had no walls and it had no end but also it had no hope for him; no prospective of being truly free. It gave him no clue of what lay ahead. When he was captured once more, he felt insulted, like a caged lion, yet again. The first weeks, the first months in his prison were like a true death to him; they had buried him alive beneath the surface, beneath the sun and beneath what he thought as rightfully his; the castle, Meridian…

However now Phobos was calm. The darkness around him had put him in a form of slumber. The fire of his ambition was put out, barely a warm coal, that still, though, burnt inside him, waiting to be broken, so the fire would be alive again. And the time had arrived. When the young Prince, his nephew, Dante, had descended the stairs, Phobos found passion anew inside him. The fire was once again free to burn and warm him up, wake him up after years of nothingness within that small hive-like cell of his. But even now, Phobos was calm. Something he was taught by this prison was patience. He was never a patient person but right now he didn't really have a choice.

He buried his anger deep inside his soul; the anger of being humiliated, of being imprisoned, the anger of being defeated, the anger of being removed yet another time from what he desired the most and the anger of being held right beneath what he longed for the most, as if mocking him, keeping his goal so close and yet so far out of reach, he buried all that inside his heart and allowed himself sink into calmness.

His ears were filled right now with silence. He couldn't hear even the growling and the snorting from the opposite cells (yet another source of his previous frustration, to be held in a small cell among other creatures that he considered his servants), the sleeping creatures that were dormant in their restless slumbers. Phobos allowed silence embrace him like a cocoon.

He was sitting down, almost squatted to the floor of his cell, with his knees drawn to his chest and his back against the wall. He could not tell from the outside what time of the day it was, he had lost track of time, for all hours appeared the same in those dungeons, however he had learnt calculating the time by the change of guards, his daily meals and also the behavior of the creatures at the neighboring cells. Those creatures, answering to some strange instinct inside them, would always wake up in the morning and slumber in the night. Phobos had learnt even to calculate their behavior in their sleep to tell what time it was. Judging from their current state, it was long past midnight down there. Phobos himself was feeling drowsy, sign that it was his time to go to sleep, however the Dark Prince did not feel really like sleeping. He had this strange feeling inside him that was preventing him from sleep and in general he never slept too much. It was like he was still trying to take even the smallest of share of this world's energy. Ever since his sister had taken over the throne, the old energy had returned to Meridian and Phobos could smell it in the air. He could almost taste it to his tongue! However he knew it was pointless to hope he could absorb anything. The cell he was in was sealing his powers, preventing him from using them. However Phobos liked to believe he managed to absorb even the slightest of it through his breathing. It was enough to quench his thirst for now.

The once strong Prince, leaned his head further into his lap, lost in his internal world, lost in his memories and lost in his plans for the future. For the first time after so many years he could finally see one last hope inside him, one new star in the endless dark sea of his universe. And suddenly, a soft light embraced him, a light he had never seen before and yet seemed familiar beyond explanation. Phobos raised his platinum head to look up and his lips curled at the corners, at a mocking smirk that never came for real… His voice came out calm, as if he was expecting this visitor for years and he had long now stopped caring whether that visitor would come or not…

"Ah…so you finally decided to visit me…"

The former Queen of Meridian, Weira the Third, was standing there in her airy presence, wearing her best dress, the one she often wore in celebrations. Her hair, as usually, was held up to the back of her head, beneath her hat, leaving only a pair of long bangs falling to the front till her hips, their bright color in perfect contrast with the white and blue of her dress. Her eyes were bright as always, pale yellowish brown, unlike a certain someone Phobos knew so well. However her eyes were not soft, at least not while gazing at him. On the contrary, the delicate brows were knitted together slightly, in a mixture of repulse, shame and perhaps a hint of sadness.

"Phobos…" Queen Weira said and her voice seemed to be traveling like a sweet echo, airy like it never was before.

As sweet as the voice was, no matter how motherly and calm it was, it did not cause any warmth inside Phobos heart. It did not remind him of any form of motherly affection or interest of a mother to her eldest son. It mostly reminded him of someone that was here to do a task they'd rather avoid. No matter, he raised his head and his oily-green eyes stared back inside his deceased mother's with an equal sense of repulse and bitterness.

"Why, isn't that the Great Queen of Meridian, descending form on high to dirty her marvelous dress by mingling with commoners and monsters…" the sarcasm was spoken so calmly as if he was simply stating facts for someone else.

Queen's delicate brows knitted even tighter.

"You don't seem surprised, to see me…" she noted airily.

"Dear Queen Mother" Phobos smirked sarcastically, "When you are provided with such a marvelous room, such as mine, you learn not to get surprised by anything… And I have been in this room looong enough, dear Queen Mother"

The last one was followed by a toothy, sarcastic grin, as Prince Phobos looked into his mother's ghosts-eyes with scorning and a mixture of bitterness and nonchalance.

"How long has it been, huh? Twenty years? Two hundred?"

The imprisoned Prince chuckled to himself.

"Pardon me, o so great ex-Queen of Meridian. Apparently, I am in this prison long enough, so I might have also forgotten my mannerisms along with my sense of time!"

He heard his mother suppressing a throaty sound of frustration. He grinned inside his mind in amusement; good, the Queen was pissed off, but still controlling herself till the last moment! It was amusing, to say the very least.

"However it is true, I have not seen you since the day you died. How's…life up there?"

The Queen frowned again but did not answer. Phobos chuckled softly.

"No answer, huh? We will go with the silent treatment now? If that's the case I wonder why you're here. If not to talk then why bother to come here to see me? To see how I am? Touching!"

The once powerful Prince of Meridian, descendant of an Escanor family, leaned against the wall of his cell, smirking at his dead mother.

"It took you long enough to remember that you have a son!" The accusation was thrown like a sharp piece of ice, "If you could come down here anytime, I wonder, what kept you from coming to see me? What changed now? Do you have a favor to ask?"

"It always has to do with an exchange to you?" she accused back

Phobos remained unperturbed.

"Ho? So you finally honored me with your voice, Queen Mother?" he chuckled, "Well the matter, of course it has to do with an exchange. You never taught me in any other way, let's be honest with each other. Well, pardon me, you never taught me pretty much anything. That was the only lesson that I learnt from you; that everything comes with a price. So name yours, dear Queen Mother. What is that your royal heart desires for me to accomplish? Sorry if I disappoint you, but try to understand. I'm rather…busy lately!"

"You are in this cell because of your crimes, Phobos" the Queen spat at him in her airy voice

"And while I was wondering where my dear nephew got those graceful quotes of his!" Phobos mocked idly, "My crimes, you say… Yes, that might be true. My crimes made me who I am, made me the Tyrant of Meridian. Then what about your crimes, Queen Mother? What cell did you place yourself in for your crimes?"

Queen Weira took a momentary expression as if someone had slapped her.

"My crimes?" she questioned almost scandalized

Phobos gave her yet another one of his toothy grins, this time his slightly sharper bicuspids showed themselves clearly.

"Oh right, how inconsiderate of my part! I forgot you were the saint Queen of Meridian, who fell heroically fighting her monstrous son! I had forgotten that you are without a sin, right, Queen Mother?"

"I never said-…"

"Of course you didn't. And how could you? Besides you indeed blame yourself for a sin, right? That's why you are here. You are here because of your remorse. You blame yourself for only one sin; you blame yourself for giving birth to me!"

This time the ghost of the former Queen was not able to contain herself for showing her emotions. Her face twisted in shock and a mixture of fear and remorse, like a child that was caught red-handed for something and took half step back.

"I hit bull's-eye, didn't I?" Phobos noted, grinning still

He leaned back, almost indolently, eyeing his mother with an unreadable, accusing, amused smirk.

"The oh-so-great Queen of Meridian finally allowed herself a single sin: of giving birth to her son!"

"You are being unfair-"

"Am I?"

The look he gave her, made the Queen lower her eyes in the first time in her life (or death). Phobos's eyes had lost something of their previous mockery and now they had a spark of anger and repulse in them. The bottled up emotions seemed to be overflowing from that pair of sharp, olive-green eyes of his and they were falling all upon his deceased mother, who was now refusing even to look at him in the eye.

"What would a mother not do for her child? What lengths would a mother not go? There's a bond that exists between mother and child... Ah, but then again... how would you know…?"

Queen Weira's face twitched once more. Phobos smirked again, but his eyes were once more accusing.

"Amusing, isn't it…?" he whispered as if talking to himself, "A mother who feels ashamed of having her child… A mother who does not love her child… Does that exist in nature, I wonder! Even beasts do take care of their children!"

Queen Weira barely contained a sob inside her throat. It was as if she swallowed something that was blocking it. Phobos, for a barely noticeable moment, wondered whether it was out of sadness or out of anger or out of remorse but the next moment he decided he did not care to learn.

"When was the last time you held me, I wonder… Was it the day I was born? No, of course not, the highly-and-mighty Queen of Meridian would ever hold a male heir. You would have asked for a servant to save you from the trouble… To give milk to the crying brat that would be useless to you, right? You didn't even give me the slightest of thing a mother would give to a child!"

Phobos felt the old anger swell up inside him like a wave. No matter what face he held right now, it seemed as if his old bitterness as a child, the one he thought he had long now forgotten, came back with this new meeting with the dead mother of his.

"When was the last time you smiled to me? Embraced me? Complimented me?"

He chuckled to himself; feeling so unlike himself to ask those questions to a freaking spirit, for crying out loud, as if he expected something would change. It felt strange to discuss those things with his mother, the one he despised all his life and who, as it seemed, despised him back, even longer than that.

"Don't bother to search your memory, it doesn't matter anymore. Besides I can hardly remember whether you were ever proud of me in the first place."

Phobos chuckled again, feeling almost like being drunk. He just couldn't stop himself form chuckling.

"Well I grew up now, you see… Are you proud of me now, Queen Mother?" his voice was dripping with sarcasm, "Your son grew up and achieved so many! He ruled a kingdom and he managed to gain fame throughout the entire universe! He managed even to climb up to the highest level… He almost became an Oracle! Are you proud now, Queen Mother? Is my ambition good enough for you? That your son reached up to where no other Escanor ever managed to climb?"

The Queen knitted her brows together.

"Oh, disgraceful son of mine!" she finally spoke, "How you use cruel words to hurt! Like you hurt so many people! Your black heart knows no mercy?"

"Mercy?"

Phobos's sarcasm was cold enough that the temperature at the already cold cell should have fallen around twenty degrees.

"Come on now, Queen Mother, let's cut the act and let us stop fooling ourselves. You speak of mercy when you, yourself, do not really search for the meaning of the word every day of your life!"

He made himself more comfortable in his sitting position at the bottom of his cell.

"You know no mercy, Queen Mother, and that was probably the only thing that I would agree with you, after all you showed it to me yourself. Step so you won't be stepped on, strengthen yourself for the future, become a powerful ruler so others will fear you more than you fear them! Mercy helped no one, right Queen Mother? Mercy weakens, right? You probably hoped you could manipulate your dear daughter instead, with those words, if fate hadn't got you first, right? You wanted to tell her how much power helps the leader, now that your daughter was meant to be the Light of Meridian, the manifestation of the Queen's powers, the phenomenon that happens only once every three hundred years! Oh you were so proud, weren't you? Probably you would really wish to make your daughter like you are! I am sure you would want to teach her how to hate her son instead of…pumping him like the good girl she is!"

Queen Weira took another step backwards, as if Phobos's words were all blows that hit her straight in the stomach. Her hand raised itself to her chest as if to hold the heart that used to he hosted there in her flesh body when she was alive.

"You are not my son!" she finally spat at him in a whisper, "You are nothing but a power-gluttonous man, blinded by anger. You are weak indeed Phobos, like I had predicted. You only knew how to take and never to give! I knew it from the very first time I brought you into this world, when you almost absorbed part of my energy with your very first breath! I felt ashamed that I knew you came out of my body when I saw what you have become!"

Phobos did not even flinch. He only chuckled softly as if he had heard a good joke.

"Finally!" he let a redemptory sigh, "I made you say it!"

He fixed himself once again and leaned his head against the wall.

"And I think this is where you are wrong, Queen Mother, I think I am you in a male version! You know how to hate pretty well, don't you? As you said, you despised me dearly from the very first moment you saw me! You abandoned me and you would have chocked me with your own hands if you dared!"

For the first time his brows furrowed angrily.

"However you couldn't do that, right? You wanted to play the role of the good Queen, didn't you? No matter what I was your son, I was your flesh and blood and you were supposed to love me! So you chose to keep me, like when you keep a dog your children want so much and you have no choice but to endure it! You only hired a woman to give me milk to live. You did not even bother to find some Escanor woman to do it! You hired a simple Galhot, not caring of anything else! And when you knew about my powers, you despised me even more, didn't you? And when you finally got pregnant again, you decided you had no further use for me! You decided that I was simply an obstacle to your own too perfect Queen's image, so you decided to get over with it. But you were a little too late, weren't you? You did not expect your demonic son would gain a mind much better than yours and a body more resistant than yours, huh? Things did not go according your plans after all…"

The bitterness, the anger and the accusations were all too much. The Queen remained with her mouth wide open, her jaw dropped and her eyes opened as wide as a doe's in the strong light. Her son's bitter offense was something she certainly did not expect. She looked at her only son as if he were a stranger she did not recognize anymore.

"Phobos…" she started numbed

"Don't call my name, Queen Mother!" Phobos interrupted, "Don't you dare to call me by my name ever again!"

He wasn't yelling but his words hid so much anger in them that his calmness appeared to be fiercer than an angry outbreak whatsoever.

"You gave me less than nothing my entire life! And you took everything from me! It is your fault I came to this world to begin with! You took away my rights, my chance to prove myself and you took away from me the hope to take what was rightfully mine! It's your fault I am in this cell if you think about it! It's your fault that I am now an empty vessel constantly hungry for more power because of all the mess you made with me when you aimed to assassinate me!"

Phobos's voice was gradually increasing in volume and in emotion without even Phobos himself to understand that. It was so unlike him to lose control like that, unless he was really frustrated over something and in that moment he really was. He felt all the bottled up memories, emotions and bitterness manifesting into this single outburst of anger towards the person he considered responsible for his condition. No matter what, though, Phobos realized that he was half-yelling already, so he stopped to take a few calming breaths before continuing in a more collected voice.

"Therefore you have no right to speak of my name! It belonged to a monster to begin with! This is how you thought of your son, your blood, ever since the day he was born! Fine then Queen Mother! You got what you wanted from me! I lived up to your expectations, didn't I? Haven't I done a good job, to make the name, you gave me?"

The fair Queen spirit glared daggers into her son. Those accusations he sent her, which she obviously believed as totally unfair, were hurting her like hot knives. However Phobos noted she had not retorted any of them. To his dismay, but not at all to his surprise, she was accepting them. She had found truth in his words, that she seemed unable to deny.

"I'm so sorry…" she whispered

For a moment Phobos feared that he had misheard, that something must not be right for his mother to apologize to him about something. However the Queen continued.

"…for creating such a monster!"

"The monster is you, Queen Mother" Phobos whispered deadly, "It takes two to tango, an action to make a reaction…a monster to make another! You said what you aimed to say, you wanted to become a memory of mine, then that's what you'll be! If you cling to nostalgia, regrets and sadness it will take you down, isn't that what you used to say? A Queen must move forward, isn't that what you used to repeat? Fine then, Queen Mother. Then move forward yourself! I do not want your pity or your lousy apologies that were not even good to begin with! Return to oblivion with the dead where you belong! Get out, Queen Mother! Leave me alone!"

"Phobos…"

"GET OUT! GET OUT AND NEVER COME TO ME AGAIN!"

"…"

"GET OUT!"

"Hey, Phobos! What's wrong? Have you finally got mad in there?"

Phobos realized that he had been screaming his lungs out and that he had shot up to his feet in the process. What brought him back to reality was the voice of the guard, who had arrived to the spot, obviously agitated by his screams. As the once powerful Tyrant of Meridian looked around he noticed the lack of light and the ghost of his mother was long gone now. The only light he could see now was the orange light from the fire to the edge of the torch the guard was holding above his head. Darkness had returned to his dungeon and so did silence. But darkness embraced him like a good friend and silence was more soothing than the previous light and his deceased mother's ghostly voice. Was it all a dream? Was he dreaming with his eyes open? But no, he could still feel her presence there. So perhaps her ghost did visit him after all. It took her long enough! Now that his mother was gone, Phobos regained his previous calmness and self-control. As a result a large grin appeared to his face.

"Oh it was nothing!" he replied in a mocking tone as if nothing happened, "I was just chasing some irritating pest off. You know how much I hate them!"

The guard snorted a single "humph!" before leaving. The orange light of the torch stared slowly getting away till the dungeon was, once more, completely into the darkness it was before. Phobos chuckled lowly before going back to the spot he had been sitting before. Slowly he sat back down and ended up in the same position he as before, like nothing happened, like he had just woken up from a dream. As he made himself as comfortable as possible into his small cell, he suddenly started to chuckle once more. It was a low, barely noticeable sound that was coming out of his throat.

"That's right, Queen Mother" he monologized in a deadly whisper, almost as low as his chuckle, like a thought that was barely voiced aloud, "You are just a pest, you always were; a thorn in my side and nothing else! Like I was nothing more than a fruit of your womb for you!"

He chuckled again and a few creatures agitated in their sleep as some of them half-woke at their previous master's sudden outburst and weird behavior.

"It is as you said, Queen Mother! You are a memory and memories belong to the past! A ruler should move forward, you said so yourself! Therefore I moved forward. And I plan on moving even more, cause unlike you, I have future before me! I fell before but I prefer to fall in battle rather than ashamed into the middle Space! You thought you had a monster; well you have one! So sit behaved where you are and just you watch! Cause your beloved son is going to rise from his ashes once more!"

Yes, it was only a matter of time, Prince Phobos thought as he leaned back and closed his eyes, keeping his self-complacent smirk to his lips. It was a matter of time before the seed of doubt he had plowed inside his nephew's soul would bear fruit.

"And its taste should be the sweetest of all…!" the dark Prince thought

And he chuckled, slowly drifting to sleep.

"God has given you one face and you make yourself another"

"I was adored once too…"

-William Shakespeare-

Somehow a continuation of "Confrontation"

Hello everyone! I finally decided to give myself this day off and I finally found inspiration to write something!
I remembered what we were discussing with my friend YarArts2 (from Deviantart) through notes and stuff, reguarding plots for our stories and stuff and she told me how much she would like for a ghost of Weira (Elyon's and Phobos's mother) to visit Phobos in his cell in her ghost form like she did to Elyon in her comics. So...Voila! I couldn't help myself and so I created one!
I hope you like it dear! Forgive me if this is a bit boring, just a series of accusations between mother and son
[Ah! Loved families! ]

And I just HAD to use her quote about "what a mother wouldn't do for her child" because of that song she suggested me

I now my original "Confrontation" story begun as an...anime counterpart of my friend's comic-inspired story but my friend honored me so much with her interest and her entrusted ideas and stuff and also I was so happy we both got into our ideas so much, so I finally decided to dedicate this fully to her and her "Hidden Truth" story, in other words this follows the plot of the comic (and ours! ) now, so yeah Phobos was indeed in outter space once. Of how he is now in the cells of Infinite City is something I WON'T reveal you
What? You want to hear cause you're curious? Well Bu-hou You must read YarArts2 story and comic to find out! Now now, people I am not being mean so please do not think I am mocking you! I am just saying that you should read the story to find out and I respect my friend's wishes to reveal bit by bit her story. Since she is the source of my inspiration, I will respect her wishes!
If she wants to tell, then she will!

Now back at the story; It takes place one night in the dungeons of Infinite City like the previous one, and probably takes place a few days or even weeks after the last encounter between Dante and our mostly dear male-siren Phobos! At this point Phobos is alone in his cell and in his inner silence when he gets a rather unpleasant visit from his mother's ghost.
Some people might say; "What?! The so good looking and nice mommy who helped her daughter why is she like that with Phobos?!"
Now, now, I will explain. Yara and I discussed thoroughfully through this and to cut the long story short we realzed that Weira should be far from perfect like the comics want to say. First and foremost because she was raised that way. She was supposed to give birth to a female heir for her throne and instead she gets stuck with a male. Can you blame her?

Besides YarArts2 has stated that it was Phobos's powers that were unwanted by Meridian society in general. (and here might also fit with the idea by Walaira [DA profile] with male Escanors attemting to get the throne in the past ) but I won't say more. You'll have to wait for her to reveal more about this.
In any case I am not certain that Weira had emotions of repulse against her son or not but for sure she did not love him like a mother should. Weira though, appeared to be picking her daughter over her son in the comics (as she appeared to her daughter and not her son-perhaps because she couldn't-) and also apparently Queen Weira has a thing about power herself since the advice she gives to Elyon in the extra issue "The Return of Queen Elyon" she advises her daughter to cause her people fear in order to prove herself strong against them and if she feels fear, to use her imagination and imagine herself stronger. She even clearly states that Elyon is "powerful" so she probably gives a great meaning to power herself:

[The quote Phobos says to the end of their conversation also comes from this issue ]

I want you to know that the accusations are spoken through Phobos's mouth, in other words they might be excessive up to one point because this is how Phobos interpreted his mother's behavior towards him. It could be true, it could be not.
As for how Phobos accuses his mother of attempting to assassinate him, it has to do with an idea had about a ritual that had to do with Phobos's magical powers but if you want to know more, you should wait for her to say. But in general it is the explanation we both give about why Phobos's powers decreased in the comics (he said so himself)

Phobos despises his mother and that is the only clear enough to us. Besides he never speaks of her in any way and even in the anime when he shows Elyon the "family portraits" he shows cousins and aunts and uncles but not their mother. Apparently he has hidden her portrait away, not wanting to be seeing it so that could lead to the result that Phobos despised his mother to begin with.
I wanted to focus on this bitterness of his in this fic. I hope that does not make it boring to read

When Phobos refers to his Galhot wet nurse, I mostly remembered YarArts2 OC Cybele and I thought that his wet nurse would also be a Galhot -like it happened to Elyon after all, remember Rundolph aka Galgheita - but Phobos in his arrogance he felt insulted by the fact that the woman that was supposed to feed him was not an Escanor, a noble, but someone of common blood and that is believed to be another displey of lack of interest towards his face by his mother (Which might be true after all )

Also when Phobos refers to the "name of a monster" he refers to his name "Phobos" because "phobos" means "fear" in Greece. So naturally only something monstrous can cause fear to name a baby like that was definitely something not pass unnoticed.

The preview image was a fast scetch I made in two minutes with coal It is supposed to be Phobos in his dark cell, just in case it is not clear I took a photo with my cell phone.

When I named Weira "The Third" was completely random but I just assumed there should be someone else in Meridian history that had this name and so I used it here.

The title was inspired by William Shakespear's quote, with which I start and end my story because Phobos's past was technically his Prologue as a Tyrant for Meridian

Anyway I hope you like it.