She had once been a demon of the highest rank, until her assigned target had escaped the doomed plane with her boyfriend and his sister. She had found herself banished from her home plane for the failure at the task of splitting that group up and was quickly swallowed by the Army.
She had offered no resistance, thinking of it as a pleasant distraction from the doldrum of life on the mortal plane without her friends/enemies to harass/hang out with.
Of course, while demonesses were no more vulnerable to naga venom than goddesses, they were vulnerable to magical bindings. And so what began as a distraction became a devotion to the core of her dark soul.
It only made since that such a master of subversion as her would latch onto certain facts. The prime loyalty of the fiancees was to Ranma, and Ranma, underneath the nagas' attempts to keep him contented, was not happy.
So it was that she dropped her old name and took up the name Bride Holy Demoness of Free Will. Ee...I mean she was the founder of the Cult of Airen by spreading these facts to those she considered capable of understanding the truth. Including a few of the famous original fiancees, one of whom gave the splinter group its name.
The Cult had engineered the escape of the First Ranma, and celebrated the casting of the Blessing of Born Form. Many of the Cult had given up on seeking Ranma, letting their love fade to a semi-religious devotion, and married each other in the centuries following the Great Freedom. And thus there time as fiancees ended.
Unfortunately, the work was not done. Though the plight of the oppressed was much relieved, it was still heavy. The nagas still ruled all others. Only now they ruled through withholding the chance to continue one's family line.
Without true males, or some other way to reproduce, the various races would remain the playthings and slaves of those nagas that felt themselves superior for their ability to control when they, and anyone else, would reproduce.
Not that this was all that common any longer. Most nagas were as kind and considerate of their subjects as any feudal leader had been, some even considered them equal, but there were those few that did not follow the ideas of charity and chivalry.
So, the plans of the Cult were three-fold. First, they sought out Ranma to seek his forgiveness and offer to serve him rather than keep him. Second they researched methods in which the females could reproduce with naga aid.
It was difficult. The Cult, the Sorceresses of Masaki and the Army, all three rather small compared to bulk of the world, believed the old myths that were once people who were born male. Attempts to research bringing back "true males" often attracted uncomfortable attention as people often assumed, half-rightly, that they were Fiancees seeking to restore the old order.
Finally, they sought to impede the Army at every turn. This was the domain of Nabiki, human again but still alive through the power of the magic she had mastered over these thousands of years, and her former recruiter, now wife, Faeryl, once again a true drow rather than a naga in drow skin.
They had been following the career of a sorceress of late, and had plans to have their daughter, Xelas, manipulate or even approach her directly about aiding their plight. Since former fiancees had weak reputations, Xelas settled on manipulation and sent her own daughter, the trickster priestess Xelia, to guide this Lina.
Nabiki also sought out the other of the original fiancees, in which group she was included oddly enough, they had all been scattered in the last battles, and she always looked for sign of them, and of which side they fought upon.
See other episodes by Thrythlind
(Posted Tue, 08 Oct 2002 11:22)
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