Malenia
It was rather cold on her skin as she began to gain sense again. The air was very cold, yet she felt warmth encircle her. A soft sigh escaped nearby, followed by a subtle coo. She smelled grave soil and florals. Subconsciously, she pressed closer. It was a rather soothing scent, strangely. It calmed the ache that lingered within the red knight's mind, shifting slowly to press more against the gentle warmth.
"I see at last we stir." A soft voice whispered. "I had feared this was to become a truly deathly companionship."
"Mmm... who... whe.. where...?" She began to murmur out. A gentle hand, soft as satin, stroked her mane of red.
"Fia, and you are with friends now." She reassured the red knight, whose muscles gave a visible slacking in response.
"What... what became of my kin."
"...The newborn goddess was subdued, and... " The words died on her tongue, but Malenia already knew it. She simply sought affirmation. Truly, she was free, but she was so too, alone. "Marika wishes to speak with you, actually. Once you have recovered that is."
"Mother...?" She muttered lightly, shifting slightly up and rubbing a hand over her face. She noticed her metal limbs had been replaced, more silver and flexible with a splid bracing along the forearm. It felt far more natural, more attached to her.
"Yes. Marika has... laments to voice to you."
"If she is seeking forgiveness, she can choke on it." The knight grumbled, adjusting to sit against the fabric of the tent. Her head set against it, breathing deeply as her rot afflicted parts ached. She only hoped this Fia had not been tainted.
"I know she has done many endless wrong, but-"
"I shall witness it for myself, or not at all. I do not dabble in words, Lady Fia. I am a warrior. If she wishes my forgiveness, she can do it by her deeds."
"She released you from bondage."
"One allowed by her before and to whom I would have been chained to otherwise."
"W. Well..."
"Actions. Deeds. That is what will speak to me. I have spent the last millenia sullied in sin and tangled by pretty tongues. I shan't let myself be harried into another's debt for undoing but one of their many crimes." She cpuld feel the sorrow in the woman's face without seeing it. "But. It is a start." The warmth she cast needed no sight. She lit ip like hope in tje cold dark.
"Thank you, Lady Malenia." The words felt calming to the red knight's always unsteady heart.
"Think nothing of it. A debt I am to pay, still, for my freedom. Not to mother, but to my other saviors. As well as that strange warrior. I wish to fight her again someday. Perhaps on better terms." A soft giggle was the answer she did not expect, and she dared to let a smile slip free at it. Little, barely there, but a smile.
"My. Luna will be excited to hear that."
"Good."
...
Marika
She glanced again at the water. Her features had returned to her own, yet the lingering feeling of a duality made whole lingered on. It was somewhat terrifying, yet it also felt nearly right. What is this strange feeling...
Us.
So now you speak?
You are the one who has insisted I remain in this cage.
I have not yet decided if I can trust you.
I am you.
...
She breathed quietly, running a hand through her golden locks. Her haze watched the icy water flow, the ripple of her face in the water and how beautiful she had always been praised to be. She hated when her featured hardened into His, yet the middle ground of rose gold and an almost unknowable kind of beauty had struck her.
Her hand gently flexed as she tried to turn her mind elsewhere. The Haligtree had utterly collapsed and withered away, caufht ablaze with Orianna's death by Melina's deathly flame carried along the strings she had split, and perhaps a small amount of Morgott cursing his doomed sibling one final time in death. They had escaped, barely, but they had been exhausted to a man afterwards. The power of the tree had died with it, and the gilded queen was but a powerful woman again. Godly, but the sheer might wielded within the tree was no longer in her grasp.
Her gaze turned now towards the Erdtree, far and distant in its lingering luminescent glory. She knew what had to be done, and no longer would they pay the price of her daughter's life. Still, the Greater Will itself would surely find issue with this resolution. She did not expecy to end this journey a goddess still, but the burden of what had attained it no longer granted her succor.
Blood paid crowns and children sacrificed in my fear. No more. I never deserved this power.
...Marika-
No. This shall be so. This... power. It does not belong in hands as reckless as us.
We have learned!
We habe stumbled our way across our failings by only the grace of a stranger and their mercy. This... this is the end, Radagon.
Must it be so...?
...It must.
...Then let me find my beloved. One last time.
Rennala...
Please.
...
Rennala
"Quickly! Quickly little one!" She shouted, running with her robes held aloft as Malli ran behind her. They ran from a massive ghost of a troll with a carian blade and a rather furious look when it had spotted the moonblessed queen, and she wasn't too sure that her magic could take out the creature without harming little Malli.
"Granny! Lemme fight it!"
"Malli, come now-"
"Lemme be a hero! Lemme be like Auntie!" She heard the sound of a metal foot spinning on its heel.
"Malli!" She spun around as the troll roared, rearing back before a trio of little daggers pierced it's face along the eyes. It roared, stumbling backward as the small hero drew out her new sword.
"I got this. Stand behind me, your majesty!" She posed like Luna, blade held firmly in both hands and stood with a slightly off vut good stance of a swordswoman.
"Well. I suppose a hero needs her support." She smiled, tapping her staff as a burning whip of lightning coated Malli's blade, crackling and singing the air with a series of yellow spotted pops where oxygen turned to ozone. The little girl grinned in a way that made the moonlit mage sweat a little.
"Hehehehehehe. Shocky sword." The troll had recovered, charging at the girl as Rennala spun her staff, forming a sheet of ice that slowed and forced the beast to stumble. It was too large to fall from it, its feet cracking it was easily the concrete, but the pause was enough.
Malli slid across one chunk of ice, slashing in a twilring leap that sliced both angles in a spray of sparks. The beast furiously cried, stomping with the slightly less sliced leg as the small knight landed behind it. She threw a small pot at its head, which exploded in a shower of rather nasty smell green fog. The troll roared violently, scratching at its face in a hurry while the tiny terror climbed up the back of its leg.
"The face! The face!" Rennala shouted, hands around her mouth as the troll shook its face and then began rattling its back. The girl hung on for dear life, wailing in a way that the moonblessed queen could not tell to be from either fear, or excitement.
"MEAN HORSIE! MEAN!" Her accompanied giggle made the queen sigh inside. She was becoming a tiny terror rather fast.
The beast twisted, reaching back and nearly grabbing the child. She crawled across its back with a rather mischevious smile, tossing little pots into the open cavity of its chest between leaping grabs as she used its arms almost like a jungle gym.
I... did say the face, right?
Malli giggled and landed on it's shoulder, leaned against it's head by her palm. "Wow. You are one smelly bad guy." It swung at her, missing heartedly as the monster punched itself in the face, falling away as the little girl tossed a glowing red pot behind her. She didn't even look at her own work as the firepot turned the cocktail within it's belly to a firework of various exploding elements, leaving a fading ghost and too much scattered ectoplasm everywhere.
She gave the most satisfied smile Rennala had ever seen on one so small and young. "Toopold you."
The queen giggled. "Seems you did." She blew out the little one's sword before Malli sheathed it, turning to the chest that sat atop the small temple. The heart of the eternal city. "And every good quest has its treasure."