Marika
The pale crimson of dawn felt strangely comforting against her bruised skin as she slowly raised her head. The ache in her limbs was far sharper than it had been a week prior. A stinging, dull throbbing that ran along her spine that had yet to fully calm. Still and thankfully, her mind was mercifully clear. Clear, and no longer stained with that suffocating, crimson rage. His rage. She quietly separated.
A ragged sigh escaped her lips into the cool autumn air. She offered a silent, desperate prayer that all she had suffered was merely a fleeting nightmare. Sadly, the Greater Will was as silent as it usually was, perhaps far more so now than it had ever been before.
She looked down at her surroundings. The rough canvas of the tent, the coarse wool of a heavy traveling cloak draped carefully over her bandaged bosom. A cloak that was decidedly not mine. It spoke volumes of the night before. Thankfully, the absence of any pain or heat between her thighs suggested only nightmares had done her further harm in the night.
A testament to the trust placed in my would-be Protector, she thought, her fingers tightening around the rough wool. Yet, the puzzle of this strange warrior stirred a bitter seed of doubt within her gut. Am I treading blindly into another snare...?
Luna
She grunted softly, hefting the dead buck into the back of the wagon with a heavy thud.
Quiet and peaceful... That was how she yearned to experience this bloody world, even if the road ahead was bound to be fraught with violence. Marika was a goddess. A crooked, manipulative, genocidal one at that. Few of her kind were any better, yet damned if Luna's own soft heart wouldn't be the death of her. Simply standing near the fallen Queen had turned her usual white-hot anger toward arrogant gods into something far softer, perhaps even empathetic. A quiet, yet growing concern for the broken, trembling state the woman had been left in her from the moment she had gazed at the broken, hobbled state of her in those shackles. No lady deserved to be left so... deprived.
Luna knew the path ahead would be nerve-wracking, irritating, and entirely thankless. She'd already made up her mind to defy her explicit orders, though her mother's missives had a habit of twisting like old riddles. It made her wonder if the vagueness was intentional. It was something she loved about their language. The endless way words could become riddles and tangible complexities, if only one took the time to truly grasp each deeper layer, but it also meant a simple command could morph into a overcomplicated puzzle.
And Marika was likely the grandest puzzle of all. Just what I need after...
Her mother had tasked her with rebirthing Marika through her great power as a trial. The stated end was meant to be a slow, agonizing burn alongside those shattered stone archways. A monument to the folly of her stolen and bloody divinity. However, reading between the lines, Luna couldn't bring herself to do it. Her mother, Skithistalia, knew that for all Luna's talent as an executioner, she was a woman of mercy at heart. She hadn't earned the moniker 'The Restful' through senseless slaughter. She knew when a soul was beyond saving, just as well as when one was merely broken.
"Never can make things simple, can ya, Mother?" Luna muttered under her breath, a faint, lopsided smirk touching her lips for a fleeting second. "Ah, well. Just how I like it."
She knelt by the riverbank, plunging her bloodied hands into the freezing water. The sting was sharp, but the view beneath the shallows pulled her in. In mere drops of water, her sight could pick out billions of microscopic lives, swirling in silent harmony. The fluid darting of silver fish. The tiny, invisible organisms keeping the current clean. The way smooth river stones acted as natural filters near the mouth, welcoming all living things to drink.
Water guided them all in peace. It made her wonder if that was why the deep ocean sang to her so hauntingly. It had since her earliest memories, few as they were before those terrible days in the iron cage.
Her eyes clenched shut as a phantom cold gripped her chest. She forced the memory back into the dark.
'Even in these strange, ruined lands, you are never alone,' Duchess spoke softly from within the quiet chambers of her mind, smoothing over the sudden spike of anxiety. 'We are always in your steps.'
Luna exhaled, shaking her hands dry before letting her palm rest on the hilt of the blade tucked beneath her cloak. A stark, pale white sheath and a matching hilt, adorned with a single tassel of silvery ribbon. Ivalice. Her oldest steel, and the guarantee that this journey would remain fair.
Not the usual way I use Ivalice's first release, she thought, but Mother oughta know what to do with a gilded queen's divinity. Luna would act as Marika's judge and jury. Ivalice would only draw blood if all hope was truly lost. The blade would fade soon, along with the other trinkets she'd used to secure Marika without raising suspicion, though that plan had clearly gone south. A single bead of nervous sweat rolled down Luna's temple at the thought.
Glancing back toward the campsite, her eyes caught Marika stepping tentatively into the morning light, gathering her bearings. Last night had been brutal, and Luna had given her the room she needed to bleed and breathe.
Marika was moving better now. Her bare soles pressed gently into the damp earth, a small grounding act that seemed to drain the sheer exhaustion from her pale face, replacing it with a quiet, fragile relief. In many ways, Marika truly resembled a great, weathered, and yet enduringly gorgeous golden tree. Wow... She briefly admired, despite herself.
A gentle smile touched Luna's lips. There's hope yet for that golden tree to blossom anew. It would be a long, painful road, but Luna meant to see it end happily. Her deepest wish was to guide this tragic goddess away from complete ruin, though she remained brutally realistic about the odds.
Still, watching the golden-haired Queen look so visibly relieved by the simple act of standing in the soil and feeling the chill wind on her cheeks brought Luna a quiet sense of satisfaction. Perhaps even a spark of genuine intrigue. Her gaze lingered on Marika's form. The tight bandages and angry red sores did little to dull what was so blatantly obvious: a radiant, breathtaking beauty, even if 'tarnished' by captivity and pain.
I wonder how much of that witheredness comes from the rebirth, and how much from the life that came before. Still... Nothin' ruined about her, Luna realized softly. Just hurt. Gods know I know what that feels like.
Suddenly, a sharp gust of autumn wind whipped around the hillside. Marika's massive, glorious mane of golden hair lashed out, slapping the Queen square across the face with a heavy, humiliating thwack.
Luna froze for half a second before bursting into a loud, booming laugh.
Marika
"It is no laughing matter!" Marika shrieked, frantically swatting the golden tangle from her eyes. "I have simply not had occasion to tend my radiant locks, and I shan't suffer a cackling fox howling at every minor misfortune that befalleth me!"
Try as she might to project divine majesty, the utter mess of her frizzed hair only made the display more ridiculous. Every fight with a frayed end landed her with more of the compounding knots, and the wind made every lash of her fingers only worsen the issue.
Her would-be savior completely lost control. The warrior dropped directly into the dirt, pounding a heavy fist against the earth with a hearty roar of laughter, leaving a small crater in the soil.
Marika's cheeks burned with incandescent fury. "Boorish brute!" She stomped her bare foot against the ground, turning on her heel to march away from the camp with a low, primal growl. What utter lack of decorum! Is this the creature sent to be my savior? She possesses no more grace than a pig wallowing in its own filth!
Despite her outrage, as she stormed up the grassy ridge, the sound of that unfiltered, boisterous laughter echoed behind her. It struck the stone casing around her heart, threatening to crack her carefully guarded reserve.
Doth she possess no respect around a lady, much less a Queen?! A goddess?! Marika fumed, her chest heaving. 'Tis as though I am forced to tread a grand measure with a mere child who knoweth not her own feet! If this insolent knight be my trial... 'tis a doomed one.
Her steps slowed as she reached the edge of the high cliff, breathing deep and focused. Were she at her granduer, there would surely be steam emitted by every one of those breaths. Still, the cool grass beneath her soles was surprisingly soothing, easing the raw ache in her arches. It did much to calm the rage that had built in her chest, soothing a encroaching red tide she was glad to see still.
Looking out over the sweeping, fog-shrouded valleys, a faint glimmer of warmth kindled in her chest. Life possessed a stubborn, relentless resilience. Should she ever reach Leyndell, should she ever stand before those great twin pillars once more... she would find a way to mend her shattered self. She would rebuild the Golden Order. Stronger. Purer.
The thought ignited a desperate, fierce fire within her soul. A subtle, radiant sheen of gold flickered across her pale skin.
"Things need not remain tarnished..." she whispered to the sweeping wind, her eyes fixed on the distant, clouded silhouette of the Capital. "We can make it even better this time!"
We can only ever make it worse.
The voice intruded like a molten blade driven behind her eyes. Marika gasped, her knees nearly buckling as the sudden, violent heat burned through her mind. Every intricate idea she had begun to formulate swiftly turned red and rotted with that burning hatred, and soured the very idea on her tongue forever more.
His rage would not be so easily silenced.