Author Notes: This is my entry for 2015 Resbang~ I had the joy of working with super wonderful artists, you can see Krib's paintings and Korri's music linked from my tumblr or from the Resbang master post on Grigori Wings. Infinite gratitude to both of them, and everyone who read through, edited, and commented on my documents, the helpful things and the ridiculous. Enjoy!

In the kingdom of Shibusen, situated between a forest of death and an ocean teeming with life, lived a very foolish king, and his hard faced, hard hearted queen who was languishing with child. The pregnancy was difficult, and it infuriated the queen to no end, and the king bemoaned his inability to bring his wife happiness.

Now, in this kingdom, built on a border between worlds, the foolish king loved his wife, and loved his unborn child. The queen, conversely, had little love left in her, her patience worn down by the wandering heart of the king and frustration with her failing health.

The king had heard of the witch, Medusa, who experimented with a twisted combination of magic and alchemy to give immortality and produce fantastic beasts. It was said that that was what had become of Medusa's own child, Crona - merged with the black blood of a dragon and transfigured into a basilisk of huge proportions, a ghastly thought. There were other tales too though, tales of curing the incurable. Thus the king was determined to acquire Medusa's magic and heal his ailing queen, hopefully without the knowledge of the witch. He knew Medusa could strike a hard bargain, and the price might be higher for he who banished her from the city only two years ago.

"King Spirit." The king turned his head from astride his horse where he waited at the gate to see his advisor, his alchemist, his old friend, Professor Stein.

"You know, I have to do this. Kami wants to leave Maka with me and go off on her own, I have to prove myself."

"You already named it?" Stein raised an eyebrow.

"Her."

"And you know it's a girl, how?"

"I just know."

"Going on such a dangerous expedition won't prove your love to your wife," Stein drawled and changed the subject. "It will only prove your foolhardy spirit."

"I have to try - I am named for it after all." The king grinned widely but sadly at his long time friend and colleague. He knew it was a mission that he might not return from.

It was an arduous journey to the witch's castle, but he was young enough, not too far gone from his days as a knight, to make the trek. It was a three day ride, through the forest tangled with brambles and sorrow, and through craggy rocks that howled in the moonlight.

He finally reached the witch's den; Medusa's castle branched out like the legs of a spider, and the walls had long been overtaken by cast iron snakes - many looking a little too real for King Spirit's comfort. He tied his horse to a tree and looked over the falls, trying to find an ideal area to scale them and steal Medusa's magic. He was less than successful on the first two attempts, and startled by the movement of one of the apparently enchanted snakes on the third. On the fourth attempt, he made it over the crumbling wall to the fortress by way of adrenaline fueled scrambling, then tumbled over the top into a rose bush. At least he would have some battle scars to prove he tried, the king thought to himself.

He crept stealthily through dark passageways, squinting in the low light, and convincing himself that the dancing shadows were only due to his own walking and not some mystical force. He had all but admitted that he was completely lost when he made it to a candle lit chamber. The king hoped desperately to find what he sought, for he was afraid, less of losing his life, and more of his future child becoming fatherless.

Spirit took a candle from the wall and scoured the room, completely oblivious to the woman standing in the doorway, watching his search with great amusement. Her hair was as twisted as her smile, and if the king was looking, he might have seen a forked tongue flicker past her lips, or a snake shaped shadow twist up from the floor to rest around her arm.

"You won't find it here," the woman said huskily and leaned against the doorway, regarding the king as an eagle would a rabbit.

The king jumped, startled, before steeling himself to face the witch. He had to remind himself to have courage for not only his own sake. "What do you plan to do with me?" he asked, his voice calm, collected; his body rabbit hearted.

"Give you what you want," Medusa answered casually. Her words made Spirit jolt out of his skin - he thought surely nothing could be that easy, and he was hesitant to learn the cost of her magic. He asked her the price, skeptically, certain that it would be something horrific, like the life of his first born child. But she answered simply that she only wanted her exile to be ended, and that the magic was a gift of goodwill for her reconciliation.

The king accepted her offer a little dubiously, and she sent him off with a jar of strange black liquid that she promised would cure his ailing wife and assure the safe birth of his child, who she confirmed would indeed be female.

Two months later, Maka was born into the world with a red face and powerful lungs. The king knew from that moment that she would have a lot of opinions, her first being displeasure at having been brought into the world in a pool of black blood. His queen winced at the cries of the baby and sent her out with the midwives, keeping only her closest handmaiden at her side. Spirit approached her bedside with concern and affection, but was rebuffed and sent along with the child.

He shooed the midwives away and took it on himself to wash Maka's skin. The blood was thick as molasses, oozing and sticking, clinging on like winter frost that had overstayed into spring. He was scared he'd rub her raw trying to rinse her clean, but miraculously, he found pale pink skin that blushed with her discomfort.

She was born to be dissatisfied with him.

He peeled off the last bit of dried blood that had snuck behind her ear, but her hair was still stubbornly dark. He supposed it was normal enough, his wife was a foreigner after all, with inky hair and cheekbones as sharp as her tongue.

She softened when she held Maka, her nearly otherworldly demeanor fading for only a moment when Maka cooed quietly at her touch. It was already obvious who the favorite parent would be.

"I'm tired, I want to sleep, take the baby away please," the queen said after just a moment, handing the baby back to the king without meeting his eyes. He took Maka away without hesitation, unperturbed by his wife's standoffishness; it had been months since she had looked at him with any warmth.

He took Maka into the nursery and rocked her while she fussed. He was determined to be the best father possible. He cooed in her ear, his angel, his darling, his sweet pumpkin, a slew of pet names that had been wasting away behind his lips, tucked inside his cheek and waiting to spill out. She eventually quieted under the waves of his words and the hand on her back.

Medusa stood in the doorway and surveyed the scene. She expected that the king would be startled by her presence, but he had warmed up to her being around the castle. She had been aiding the professor, Stein - an intriguing man to say the least - so the king had learned to tolerate and trust her. She had been sowing snakes since her arrival, and her malevolence was soon to come to fruition.

The king would soon understand the true meaning of reaping what you sow - he had let her root here in the first place.

"The baby is healthy?" Medusa asked, though she already knew the answer; the black blood she had given them was a strengthening agent after all.

"She certainly has a healthy set of lungs," Spirit replied and looked adoringly at his daughter. There was affection in his eyes and it set Medusa's teeth on her edge. She nodded with a convincing sense of approval and left him alone to prowl around the castle on her usual walk. Her snakes hovered by, lingering in the shadows, clinging to the cracks of stone, as they whispered along the message that the King had left the baby and gone away.

They hissed his actions, hissed his intentions and his fears, ever present in everything.

Spirit stole back to his own chambers and found his wife asleep but restless on the very far edge of the bed. They were on the edge of land after all; perhaps she was trying to cross the sea.

Her wedding ring sat on the bedside table, their names engraved darkly on it, so scarcely worn that it was still as pristine as on their wedding day. Maka's could join them - he prayed a reminder of their new daughter could keep their family together.

Spirit, Katsumi, and now Maka. The silversmith could wedge Maka's names between the other two, which were situated on opposite sides - it was all too prophetic. The castle smith was not particularly pleased with being woken at such an hour, but grumbled placations of doing the engraving first thing in the morning. Spirit left the ring with the smith - it wasn't as if his wife would notice its disappearance anyhow - and returned to their chamber. Assured that Maka was sleeping peacefully, he climbed into bed himself and drifted off.

Assured that the King wouldn't interfere, Medusa returned to the nursery with a shuffle of her robes and toyed with the black hair on the infant's head. As the witch whispered incantations, strength poured into her, for the physical manifestation of black blood in the flesh magnified its powers; it could only do so much without possessing something truly alive. She knew from experience that the specimen must be kept intact for the magic to work - her child Crona had been a failure on her part - so she carefully wrapped the child in her arms and vanished into the woods while the moon watched from behind the clouds, the only witness to her crimes.

The next morning, the king was awoken by a servant, who had found the baby gone when he had gone to stoke the fireplace in her nursery. The king howled and wept and tore apart the castle among the dogs while the queen sat up in bed. A flicker of horror passed across her stony face at the news, and she sank back into the bed. She was weary. But the deed was done: Medusa had taken the girl far and deep into the forest, where she had prepared a tower to hoard her away with all other manner of magic trinkets.

The king wailed relentlessly, filling the space left by Maka's own crying, and the Queen packed up her garments with her maid servants, put her ring on the mantle, and boarded a ship in the harbor. She said she was setting sail for a city less plagued by the woes of magic and madness.

Deep in the woods, the witch struggled as she had never struggled before. Medusa was not particularly motherly, and she did not count on the girl growing, and her opinions growing along with her, but grow she did. Maka became a young woman destined to be dissatisfied with the world.