Grand Duchess Patricia Forrester, the Warden of the Woods of which her organization is named after, whom is widely considered to be one of the most powerful magicians in existence… was pouting in her bedroom. Tossing her hair back, she stared at the pathetic looking woman in the mirror. The emotional rigamarole had begun taking its toll on her, forcing her to heal away the bags under her eyes. She had spent most of the previous night alternating between rolling in her sheets in anxiety, or outright crying as she tried to come to terms with a harsh truth.

She was doing it again.

Despite being given a second chance at a relationship with her son, she was blowing it spectacularly. Again. Because she is, and always has been, a terrible mother. The hardest part was, she couldn’t figure out where she was going wrong this time! Last time, sure. She gets it. This time though?

She was putting in the effort. Not a soul could argue that point. She had strained her body, mind, and magic to the point of complete exhaustion for nearly a year keeping him alive. Whatever toxins he had ingested to put him in his coma were potent. Even worse, it propagated within his body, causing far more damage than she could reliably heal with her pathetic excuse for healing magics. Stemming the tide of the magical plague that ravaged his body made her regret not pushing her magic harder during the simpler times. Perhaps if she had, she would have won. She always thought she worked hard enough. She meditated enough to get by. She forced enough cycles that she was considered powerful. Her foundations were solid. Healing her son was considered a done deal. After all, she was the most accomplished healer alive within the country, perhaps even the world.

After a few hours of battling the poisons within her son’s body, she had finally stopped being shocked at the development of her beautiful child being targeted for assassination, and was instead fuming with anger at whomever had attempted such a nonsensical attack. How dare some trashy cutthroat attack her family? What was even the point of not dealing a killing blow to the boy when it was obvious that his mother could just make all the ouchies fade away? There would be hell to pay for this transgression.

After a few days of battling the poisons within her son’s body, she had started to feel more than a lot of anxiety at his chances. She was losing the fight, she could tell. The toxins were using his own magic channels against him, and they were surprisingly robust. Her son’s pathways were as thick and strong as someone in their twenties somehow, despite never having casted a spell even once. Or had he? They certainly both had secrets. Unfortunately for his future, his foundation was absolute garbage. It held no pattern at all, it was simply a tangled mess that went all around his body. Cycling without meditation to straighten out the magic channels would certainly result in some warping over time… but his looked like a single strand of spaghetti became an entire heaping plate of food.

Perhaps their estrangement had caused him to harden his heart to his fate, and he had begun to practice in secret? More importantly, without direction? Still, that wouldn’t explain his growth… it was by no means extraordinary, particularly in comparison to her own powers which were many times greater… but it was shocking to learn her boy was practicing magic and she never even knew. During a treatment she would often stare down at his face while she pulsed her magic into him again and again, feeling his skin becoming just a little less vibrant each day, his muscles just a little less defined with each of her failures.

After a few weeks of battling the poisons within her son’s body, her husband and daughter had gone out together and vanished without a trace. It was the perfect time to target them. She could not leave her son to investigate it personally. If she left, he was guaranteed to die. She had started sleeping in a cot next to his bed, completely ignoring the world around her so she could completely focus on his recovery. Due to the origin of his ailments, she didn’t allow anyone else in to see him. No other specialists or healers were allowed on the second floor. Only a few extremely trusted maids were allowed in, and only while she directly supervised during her rest periods. Once she was done resting, she went back to forcing enough regeneration into her son that he would have died of cancerous tumors several times an hour. She could feel her powers slowly becoming more potent through extreme use… but the toxins were growing stronger too. She was always just a half step behind…

After a few months of battling the poisons within her son’s body, she was starting to offend a great number of members of the aristocracy with her isolation. Not only had she completely severed herself from high societal functions, she had banned all visitors to Rowan Keep. Seeking benefits from her state, many men tried worming their way into her life anyway. A few that had forced their way onto the second floor to speak with her have yet to physically or magically recover from her wrath. Ironically, their recovery would have to wait for her to personally help them, being as she is the premier healer of the country. More assassins had been sent to kill her son, though at this point it was suspected to be less about removing him, and more about getting the Grand Duchess out of his room. After he was dead, she could properly mourn the death of her family and hopefully become a useful leader of the Kingdom once again. She barely paused in her work to shift her magic to negative, removing large chunks of the would-be killers until they simply ceased to be. Immediately, she swapped back to positive and went back to work, her obsession with the task only started to dawn on her as possibly being completely in vain. A fear started to creep into her mind, fraying her resolve. He may not recover… and if he does not, what would be left of the poor, broken, Lady Forrester?

A full year of battling the poisons within her son’s body had finally come to pass. She had lost, she knew. She had sacrificed too much proper cultivation of her pathways, and they had begun to spiral in ways she could no longer make immediate sense of. To continue her cycles, she had to focus too hard. The process had become too lengthy. She had grown so powerful so quickly, her foundations were as haphazard and ramshackle as her son’s. She finally understood why his pathways seemed so pointlessly chaotic. That chaos had not only plagued her mind for months but also greatly hindered his recovery due to the difficulty she had healing it. A problem that the poison did not possess. The poison was never growing stronger within his body… her control over her own growing powers were simply lessening in a comparable manner.

Laying her body over the corpse that was once her son, she shrieked in pain. A year’s obsession had come to nothing. She had forsaken the chance at recovering her daughter and husband because they had a chance to come back to her on their own. They did not. They were dead too, she knew now. As was her son. She could tell he was dead as her positive magic no longer affected him. The toxin, having done its work, immediately went inert and faded away to return to whomever created it. Ah… she understood. The toxin wasn’t propagating on its own, it was still tied magically to its caster. With any luck, they have spent the past year in as much anguish as she had. With intent, she used her positive influence to ‘add’ a slight parting gift to whomever cast this insidious magic on her child. A parting gift consisting of all of her magic. They may have won… but they would not live to enjoy it.

Staring over his beautiful, sunken face, she kissed him one last time on his forehead before leaving the room. She walked to her office, opening the door casually as the wards had disappeared with her magic. She picked up a piece of parchment and began writing.

“To whom it may concern,

I am far too tired to stay awake even a minute longer than necessary. Once my revenge is complete, I shall be going to sleep. Do not bother trying to wake me. You will not be able to.

Sincerely, a mother of two.”

Having put the finishing touches on her note, she sat calmly in her office for a few minutes.

She looked over a few missives while she waited. Several villages had been overrun by monsters during her absence. Her husband missing greatly impacted the Warden’s sworn duties, as he wasn’t even around to pick up a little of her slack. She did wonder what had happened to him… but at this point she was quite certain he was dead along with her daughter. He was never quite on her level, but he was too powerful to be constrained. With a burst of his power, he could have turned whatever cage he was being held in into an active volcano.

The minutes ticked by and she started to get a little frustrated. The man or woman in question was already dying suddenly and in agony, the magic just had a rather long journey to inform them. Perhaps in the future, assassins would think twice before tethering their magic to a target in such a way when they see their compatriot explode in about ten adult human’s worth of gore. The Duchess had ‘added’ quite a lot, after all. As a few more minutes passed by, the Lady had started to doze slightly in her uncomfortable office chair when a Knight burst through the open doorway and into a kneeling position.

“My Lady! You finally succeeded! The Young Master has woken up! We thought all hope was lost when you left his room for the first time in months, and we all apologize for our lack of faith in your powers!”

Had the Lady actually fallen asleep after all? It was a rather cruel dream, considering it would be her last. The sleep she had in mind was not the temporary kind, after all. Still though, curiosity got the better of her. If this was to be the last time she saw her boy alive, even if it was in a dream… she would take the chance to apologize to him once again. He may never have forgiven her for what she did… but she hoped maybe giving her life in recompense may be a meaningful move towards atonement. She always understood his anger at her actions, given how close it hit to his heart… but what did it matter? He was already dead. He had died hating her almost as much as she now hated herself.

The Knight in question felt a little unnerved at the silent, weak woman before her. Her Lady had always exuded a pressure upon the world, being a side effect of her potent Magic Soul… but right now she was as mundane as the magic-less masses. The Lady lifted her head and looked into the eyes of the Knight. The Knight shivered at the deadness held in the Lady’s eyes, her complexion and visage absolutely perfect in every way except with the glassy dead eyes of one of those creepy taxidermized monsters in the front hall.

“Well… let us go visit him.” She said, almost fearfully. As she stood, the resignation fell from her face and became a wicked smile when the whole Keep shuddered for the second time in half an hour. As her magic returned to her, the Knight was forced to step back from her Lady’s presence. The power radiating out from her was dark, primal, and hungry. Only to suddenly shift a moment later to the usual glow of warmth and radiance. They rushed to the Young Master’s room, and the Lady knew immediately she was not in a dream where she got to beg her son for forgiveness. She was in a nightmare where he had not the strength to lift his body, but still managed to flinch and pull himself from her arms. Of course he would still hate her. Why would he not? Fighting to save his life was the least she could do. She was his mother and she would, dream or not, prove herself worthy of that title to the both of them. It will take time, but why is she in a hurry? There is nothing waiting for her when she awakes, so she might as well enjoy the dream as long as it lasts.