"So." The rain was heavy as ever tonight. Melina and Ranni stood side by side. Luna, Fia, Messmer, and Renalla to another, and Marika with her two new compaions. They had all found their way to a small encampment that had once been the consecrated snowfields, now nothing but a muddy swamp a mile away from the ever growing tree. "How are we doing this?" Cinder spoke first.
Messmer cleared his throat. "It... is going to be difficult. I am still rather exhausted by getting us all here from the shadow lands." Rellana lightly rubbed his back in support, a quiet moment as the two touched faces. He had spent a bast quantity of his blood to trip by the barrier separating them. The others all began to catch up, planning tjings, but Nahul couldn't focus on any of it. Her gaze landed quickly on Marika, who soon met hers. Idle words and chatter buzzed by as the two drank in one another. Caked in mud, blood, and battle. Their hair messes of mayhem and melees. She never looked more beautiful.
The rain numbed the pain in the knight's limbs that had grown so intense over this journey. She felt her cheeks grower wetter than the others, her hands flex and clench as her mind began its split once more. A choked sob began to bubble against Luna's throat as she suddenly dropped her newfound blade and stepped briskly toward her Gilded Queen.
"Marika..."
"Luna." The two whispered in unison as they embraced. Their arms enveloped each other with all the firmness of a coiling set of serpents. Sweet as I remember...
She felt her queen's lips tremble against her own, the soft warmth that came from the urgency for which both embraced. They sobbed between choked utterances of pointless sorries and more half slurred whispers of love than most could hear in a lifetime. She still felt so strong as she held the knight, who clutched her back when the two could no longer forsake air. She held her tightly, hands like claws against the tightest muscles of Marika's back, her face buried in her neck as her Queen sobbed against her hair.
"I missed you... gods... I could not sleep without you..." The knight mumbled out, voice a cracking shake of mumbles as she held on tighter. Marika's arms wrapped further around her, seemingly unsatisfied until she nearly subsumed her beloved. Luna felt an equal share of this need, shakingly matching her queen's grip until the tension was shattered.
"Get a cottage." Melina interjected with a joking snicker, which sent the entire dreary atmosphere into a laughing fit. Messmer nearly fell over if not for Rellana, and Fia was giggling into Melina, who was holding onto Ranni for support, who was clutching a tree. Cinder facepalmed to mask her own giggles while Kimi just continued munching on the small cookies she had stored in her jacket.
"Well. What's the plan, then?"
The ground shattered mere feet away from them.
"MOVE!"
As one, the group dispersed with Rellana leaping away with the wounded Messmer. They were all tired and drained, but it seemed Miquella had no intentions to grant them respite. A massive, steaming red hand rose and crashed down onto the ground from the crack. They all reached for their arms before a small voice called out, "Wait...!" In a pained voice.
The arm rose itself slowly from the broken earth, terrible rips in the skin from what could have been miles or meters of scaled earth and bitter broken rock as Radahn, naked, shaking, and bleeding, rose up and fell upon the shattered ground. In his arms, a woman lay. She was tiny, frail, wounded in places, yet she was also fair as fair could be. Soft lavender hair that fell across her porcelain skin like flower petals.
"We... come in... peace..."
...
"So... Orianna, was it?" Marika questioned skeptically. She looked at the girl as she leaned against Ranni's chest, who was holding her delicately while Melina slowly took care of her wounds. Radahn slumbered nearby, snoring like the small mountain he was. A blanket had been tossed over to shroud his dignity.
"Yes." Trina answered softly, as she had informed them was her name. Though, not who she was or why. Marika seemed to almost recognize her, and so did Melina, but Ranni did not, and neither voiced this curiosity. "She truly plans within days to..." She paused, soon falling forward like she was fainting before she shook her head. "Mm... within.. days... to absorb this entire.. mm.. world.."
"We have to hurry then." Ranni said gently as she preened the girl's hair. "We must find a safe place for our wounded and make way for the tree." She glanced toward the ever growing gilded expanse and its haunting, divine enslavement it promised.
"We will." Melina answered. "Rellana can handle them while we focus on getting to the tree."
"What.. is that?" Marika questioned, noticing the hue of black aura that hung around Melina's closed eye now. She simply smirked.
"Insurance."
"You all are... soo... confidaaant..." She yawned steadily, the lavender girl stretching. "So sleepy..." As the girl slumped steadily against the snow witch's chest, fading into dreams.
...
"What... is this?" Ranni questioned as the two lay in their tent. They had chosen to rest, knowing they all had a single night to recover before having to take on the great monster of their time. The witch's finger lightly traced the aura, able to feel its pull against the natural flow of existence. Melina smiled, leaning on one arm with her cheek against her palm, lightly tracing a finger down Ranni's arm as Fia held her from behind.
"Insurance."
"Candle..." Fia said softly, resting her forehead against the soft space of Melina's back. "Please... Tell us you do not still still give thought to... the unthinkable." She lightly squeezed one of the arms Fia had wrapped around her, turning slightly to plant a soft kiss on her head. She untensed just a little from the motion.
"A gift. One that will let me burn any one of those trees without having to use myself as kindling." She answered, smiling at the relief in Fia's eyes.
"So what has it cost you?" Her witch questioned, turning Melina's face back with only two fingers under her chin. Those fingers felt rather strong, she would admit in the moment. She gazed back into her beloved's eyes, heart skipping at the darting glances of anxiety in the stoic expression painting her face.
"My Mortality." She whispered. Ranni quirked a brow, confused for a moment, before realization struck her. Fia squeezed in closer, seemingly assured that her love might never be robbed from her, but Ranni got it. Melina watched as the tears fought against love in her face, battling years of trained poise.
"Melina..." She choked out, more sobbed than she intended as the Candle rested a gently hand upon her cheek. She felt the wetness and brushed it aside with her thumb.
"Cry not. I shan't let thee leave me so soon." She leaned in, giving her snow witch a gentle kiss, planning to sooth them both for the night in private.
...
"Just what... are you?" Messmer rubbed his chin, knelt down in front of the oddly dressed cookie girl, who was munching on her reserve currently.
"Do you want a list, or the short version?"
"Comprehensive is preferred."
"My father is an archangel, my mother is a succubus, and my father used my fetus as a science experiment. So. Who really knows."
"You too, huh?" He chuckled.
She stared at him for an uncomfortably long time before offering a cookie. "Here. These are good for trauma." He smiles gently, taking it as he leaned back against the log again and tended the fire with his offhand. He took a bite and cooed, rather smitten with the warm and soft flavors.
"I see why you call this comforting." He savored another bite.
"They taste like home." She smiled, a tiny little smile that seemed to warm his long pained heart.
"You are far too cute for war. Are you, more of a technical advisor?" He took another bite with a curious smile. "Equipment? Perhaps a smithy?"
"No. I just eat people." She took another bite, seemingly ignorant to Messmer's stunned stare as he nearly dropped his own sweet treat.
...
Rellana sighed, adjusting her bare shoulder as she stood up from the nearby cleared water pool they had made. She rolled her shoulder, trying to calm the tension in her chest just as a hand offered a small white stick to her. "Here. Helps with stress." Cinder answered her unspoken question.
Rellana quirked a brow as she gingerly took it. Cinder moved it to her lips, then she formed a spark of fire at her thumb as she lit the stick. It smelled like a skunk, but moments after a few puffs, the pain in her shoulder eased as did the patting of her formerly racing heart. The girl leaned against a tree, with the twinmoon knight soon joining her.
"So." She tooked a long puff. "He's your man?" Cinder asked, motioning to Messmer, who was being chased by a playfully cackling Kimi around the campfire. He looked so childish, so carefree in these moments. It was a side Rellana hadn't been gifted in far too long.
"Yes. That is my husband." She smiled tenderly, watching how he leaped over the logs and had begun laughing as the smaller woman gave more frantic chase, all while making the most over the top villainous noises and giggles.
"Yeah, got an idiot of my own."
"Luna?"
"Well, she's one of them, but my main wife is this amazing chick back home named Layeh."
"Tell me of her."
She looked over, catching the smile that had peeked at the corner of the normally quiet woman's lip as she told her of a wolf who loved to gardened and danced with ice.
...
Marika lightly ran a finger across her knight's cheek, whom lay nestled into her belly as she listened to the soft movement of their child. "I am shocked they haven't been born yet, or worse..."
"Oh, don't worry about that. My Family's children tend to be patient. My eldest sister took a few centuries by my parents' account." She lightly traced those callused fingers in little patterns that Marika had begun to understand. It had a rhythm, three versions to it, but she hadn't quite mapped more yet.
"Have you considered names?"
"A few, but honestly, I think that's mainly because I wish to avoid your awful naming scheme." She flashed that foxy, narrow eyed grin at the gilded queen, who shot her an agasped look.
"Excuse you, but what is wrong with my children's names?" She puffed her cheeks, and for once she felt the more childish of the two.
"How many are called god-something?"
"..." That stupid smirk widened. "Point taken, now rid yourself of that smug expression." She answered as she poked her knight's cheeks.
"How about... Joshua?" Her knight smiled.
"Hm, unique. I can't say I have heard it in these lands." She smiled warmly.
"It was a name a mother of mine gave me, but it no longer belongs to me. So, why not give it to someone who can love it?" Marika smiled tenderly, eyes softening at the thought of it all. She was one of few to know her knight's great secret.
"Very well, but, should it be a girl... How about... Hm..."
"I have many daughters, so, I shall leave that one to you." She kissed the queen's belly before resting her head on it and letting herself drift away into sleep to the sound of their matched breathing. Marika slowly rested back her own head, smiling as a name finally came to her. She turned her face, gazing at the glowing threat peeking in the not-too-distant view. She would not repeat all her mistakes. Not this time. This was the result of her arrogance, this world and it's horrible, impending end that she had to now stop.
"Aurora."