"If I could fly with these broken wings, I would fly all the way to heaven. But these bloodstained feathers are too heavy as they drag me to hell. Before I arrive in those pits of fire, if I can do just one thing with this existence, it would be to lay down my life and sword for her. For the one my life belongs to. Do not mistake this resolve for something as righteous as duty or love. She hates me, and I hate her. We'll never be friends or comrades or sisters or lovers. What we hold is vile, yet it is that hatred that unites us as one, and why we understand each other best."
Before Red was Sako's appointed knight, she was an orphaned child lacking even a name. Just a desolate streetrat surviving in the underground of Wunderdum.
That poor, hapless child lived off of stolen crumbs and trash, shivering asleep each night in the unrelenting darkness with an aching stomach and an empty head. Her indented cheeks and ribbed chest were coated in dirt, and her life wasn't anything more than a persisting existence, knowing no other feeling except for misery. Not even the Agents of Darkness wanted a forlorn child such as her in their ranks. They all saw her as a walking corpse, soon to be a body alongside the road getting picked clean by rats and maggots.
There was not a thought in the child's head on the day she was going to die. In the accumulation of thirst, hunger, disease, and exhaustion, she simply lay on the side of the road as the other inhabitants of the underground stepped over and around her, waiting for the light in her eyes to finally vanish.
But fate, or rather, a man would come to save her.
The one who picked her up was just another thief, one who always kept his face and body covered. Only his eyes could be seen in the dim light of candles, and they were keenly piercing. Contrarily, his voice was upbeat and kind; jovial, almost. He took her back to his shabby home on the outskirts, fed her, and nursed her back to health over the course of several days.
When she could finally speak again, she sat up in his raggedy bed and stared at him as he fed a fire with some twigs he'd scavenged from an underground entrance.
"Why…?" the girl asked weakly. Her voice was hushed, as if she had never used it before.
"Don't think of it as an act of kindness, little girl," he said happily. "It's more of an investment on my part."
The girl looked at him, perplexed, as he walked over and handed her a cracked bowl of murky water.
"You see, I have a special power," he said. "The power of appraisal! And with these supreme eyes of mine, I can see your potential."
The girl shifted her eyes to the side and clenched the torn blanket that sat atop her frail body.
"I'll keep ya fed n' well, but in turn, I'm gonna work ya to the bone," the man said. "If you got a problem with that, you're free to leave, but I can tell ya, I ain't gonna pick you up again."
From that day forward, the girl and the man began a student-master relationship. Though the man never took his mask off and only referred to her as 'little girl,' he was the only one who saw her for more than a corpse, and so she followed him relentlessly, following his every order, and learning everything she could.
He taught her to survive in the underground. Things like where to scavenge for food. How to steal. Methods for sneaking around in the shadows. Who to approach and who to avoid. He was the one she respected most and the closest thing she had to a father. She never dared to admit it, but she began to treasure him just a little. To actually care about him, which was something unheard of in the underground world. They were dwellers who knew only of survival, not love.
One day, the two were overlooking the underground city, chewing on some moldy bread they'd found in the trash. The only light in that dark place was provided by luminescent fauna and sparse fire, faintly outlining broken buildings from a past kingdom. It was nothing like the sprawling city of Wunderdum, where light was abundant, even in the darkest night.
And even without stars in the sky to gaze upon and think, the girl still wondered.
"What's the world above like?" the girl asked.
"The overworld?" the man asked. "Hm, it's sort of like a rose."
"A rose?" she asked. "I've heard of those things. They're flowers with thorns, right?"
"Yeah," he said. "Beautiful to look at from afar, but they'll hurt you if you touch them."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Let me tell ya somethin' about the world, little girl," the man said, his head tilted up. "It ain't a good place. While we're down here sufferin' and scavenging trash for scraps, the folks upstairs are dancin' and keeping their bellies full without a care in the world. They scorn our existence and force us to live in darkness, keeping the sun all for themselves."
"That doesn't sound fair," the girl mumbled.
"It ain't," the man scoffed. "But everyone is afraid of doin' anything about it. Or rather, those who have are all dead."
"Why's that?"
"Because no one can go against the people in power. The king. The queen. The princess. The Round Table. Even Merlin, who was once one of us. Once he wormed his way into power and got a taste of that sweet sunlight, he never looked back. They're to blame for all of this. While we suffer and wail in garbage, they sit on their thrones just watchin' amused as can be."
The girl gazed around the dark city and felt something in her heart. Something she wasn't familiar with, as it wasn't fear, hunger, or sadness. For the first time in her life, she felt anger rising within herself. Until that point, she never had an object of hate to blame for why things were the way they were, but as her master explained it, it all became clear to her. The unfair world they were forced to suffer through had a source, and it was them: the putrid rulers who claimed power, reigning over everyone else like squirming bugs beneath their feet. The cause of despair.
"Is there really nothing you can do?" the girl asked.
"Me? Doubtfully," the man said. "I ain't strong enough to do anything. They'd strike me down before I even got close… but… maybe there's somethin' you could do. Something only a child could do with the right resolve."
Her master reached into his satchel and pulled out a black, obsidian dagger. He held the sharp edge of the blade and handed it to the girl.
"Will you make a change in this forsaken world?" he asked.