Irina and Edgar's breaths and heartbeats held steady. Slowed enough to ensure their slumber went uninterrupted but steady. Sellen, who'd been busying herself with her own devices, had begun to make her way towards the ruins but between the slowing of her steps and heartbeat whatever resistance she had against the frost gathering on the island would not be enough for her to reach them.
"A bit rude don't you think?" Onyx questioned, attention shifted away from them and focused completely on the source of the frost.
"My apologies." She said with a slight tip of her oversized hat. "I wish only to ensure a private conversation with thee. No harm shall befall thine's companions."
He'd already confirmed that for himself. The frost was capable of far more than a sharp drop in temperature, managing to dampened the range of his senses without touching him. Anyone and anything that observed them would be hard pressed to figure out what was being said without first drawing close enough to risk revealing themselves.
"Ranni." Marika stated, abandoning her spot along the walls to float near the visitor. Her lips curved upwards, the clear warmth of fondness, a first from her, momentarily joining the simmering anger housed within her. The latter bubbled forth as well, an equal share of positivity and negativity aimed at the woman. "It wouldst be wise to make an agreeable impression. Whether or not thee intends to fulfill mine request, this daughter of mine shall make for a powerful benefactor."
Interesting how Marika so quickly acknowledged this woman but refused to clarify her relationship with Melina.
"I'd heard tell of one traveling alongside a spectral steed. A savage dark haired tarnished responsible for the kidnapping of one of their own, Godrick's remaining forces claimest, one that they art resolute in putting to the blade." The woman, Ranni according to Marika, continued, her single eye dropping to Melina for a moment before relocking with his. "And upon looking into the matter, the talk, I surmise, is of thee."
Before he could answer, mist gathered within the frost at Ranni's feet. Torrent rose from the ground, neighing and shaking his head as he stopped in front of her.
"It could be." Onyx said dryly. Though the expression on her physical face remained unchanged, the lips of the spectral form quirked upwards as she raised the pair of arms resting in her lap. With Torrent taking it upon himself to greet her there was no room for any ambiguity.
"Free spirited as ever I see. It pleaseth me to see thee hale and hearty." She said as she stroked Torrent's mane, a feat none other than he and Melina were capable of, the gesture rejected from anyone else. "Quite the ruffian thee hath chosen, Torrent. Most isolate themselves, content at the lonesome fringes of Limgrave rather than poking at The Order."
Torrent snorted, nodding.
"Yet thee accompanies him all the same."
At this point Torrent might as well be bad mouthing him. Truly a betrayal of the highest order.
Still petting Torrent with her lower arms, the upper ones were pulled beneath her cloak as she turned her attention back to him. "I was entrusted this, for thee." Arms slipped out from her cloak, she held her open hands out towards him. On the palm of the left was an elaborate silver bell, its handle made up of a sort of intersecting curved helix and quite a few inscriptions around the main body. On her right palm was a jar, its surface too clouded for the contents to be made out.
Onyx paid them little mind, his interest in the woman herself stoked to new heights.
It wasn't that her skin looked so flawless that it reminded him of porcelain, rather, it was porcelain or some sort of adjacent material. Her wrists, joints, and the cracks revealed by shifting winds pushing aside her hair, revealing the true nature of her form. She wasn't flesh and blood but a soul residing within an artificial vessel.
A soul nearly strong enough to contend with Melina's.
And, perhaps because of that artificial container, the golden energy that seeped into this land and infected all within it was not so prominent within her. It was still present, the persistent thing having secured a stubborn connection to her very being but the physical form she inhabited was very much her own.
Or at least as much of her own as it could be.
"I'm curious." Onyx said, thumbing up and over at the Erdtree. "That thing. What do you think of the energy it gives off?"
Her outstretched hands lowered slightly. "A curious question. The Erdtree's light blesses all beneath it, does it not? Hath these turbulent times led thee to question that?" Faithful words with none of the piety expected of them. Her physical expression, the doll she inhabited likely incapable of any real change in expression, revealed nothing but her tone and slight upturn of the lips of spectral form gave away amusement.
She believed that claim about as much as he did. Not in the slightest.
"Bless isn't the word I'd used." Onyx said through a faint snort.
There were many reasons people would abandon their flesh for an artificial body. A pseudo immortality tended to be the leading reason in many worlds. Convenience was the next. The most interesting reason, and what he hoped was true in her case, was that they were seeking to escape the hold a higher power had on them.
If that was her aim it'd take more than a simple abandoning of the flesh to accomplish it.
"That makes thee a rare sort indeed." Ranni said. "Be cautious of sharing such a sentiment. Such blasphemy may leave thou surrounded by enemies of all kind."
She said that like he wasn't already finding people eager to cut him down where he went. He wouldn't mind a few more if they turned out to be stronger than anyone he'd gone up against so far.
"Torrent's former master wished for these to be passed along to the next." Ranni raised the palm with the bell. "Tis a bell for calling forth spirits." She explained before raising the jar. "Summon them with it, from ash unreturned to the Erdtree. The spirits will obey thine command but briefly, as they recall battles past."
That explained the bell. There was a sort of compelling aura about it. One he didn't particularly like.
"If thee shall insist on turning up thine's nose to power, at least have the bell remain with Torrent." Marika stated, her attention turned to Onyx. Annoyance. Anger. None of the usual stuff that came with a demand from her rose up, her golden eyes even lacking that downward glower. It was nothing more than a request.
An insistent one but still just a request.
"You want them, Torrent?" Onyx questioned. Torrent looked back to him, then, after a pause, shifted, moving away from Ranni's grooming and positioning his saddle bags before her.
"A curious decision." Ranni said she slipped the two things into the bag, her spectral form's head tilting slightly. "They are thine, to do with as thou wishest, but does thee truly intend to make no use of the bell's power?"
"They're not really my thing." Onyx said with a shrug. Wandering Souls were plentiful in this land, most condemned to an aimless existence due to the influence of that golden energy. Using that thing, compelling them to fight for him, would just be a temporary swapping of their unseen chains. "Besides, I'm not Torrent's master so that stuff isn't meant for me."
Ranni's head shifted, gaze turning to Torrent. "A principled ruffian, then. It appear thou hath chosen thine's company wisely." Torrent neighed as he turned back to her, Ranni stroking his head one final time before pulling back. The rolling frost began to recede, vanishing as it reached her.
"Forgive mine intrusion, Onyx." Ranni said as she herself began to turn into sparkling bits of frost from the bottom up. "I believe we shall meet again. Until then, learn well the Lands Between. There rest a number across it who's eyes have turned upon thee."
"Nice meeting you too." He called out, not really having time for much else. He barely got out the final word before she and her accompanying frost were swept away with a passing breeze, the temperature beginning a slow climb back up to its norm.
How did she know his name?
"Blaidd acts as her shadow. He informed her of your meeting, no doubt." Marika explained, taking the spot that Ranni abandoned while Torrent headed over to him, dropping down to a sit and nuzzling the still slumbering Melina's waist. "It wouldst seem thou hath made a good impression on mine daughter. Such a warning would not have been spoken otherwise."
And that warning. Chances were, she was just the first in a line of whoever his brief Mana High had drawn to him. And, though he hoped otherwise, he'd bet on her turning out to be the most interesting. Being related to the one currently hitching a ride in his body would be rather difficult status to beat.
Either way, she was right about them meeting again. He was far too curious to let that be their last meeting.
XOXO
Faith. Fear. Ignorance.
Though it was rare Ranni had seen a number pass up power. Some for the better and others for the worse. Countless others leaped onto power like rabid animals for the very same reasons, careless of the effects it would have on them and those around them.
Not really my thing and that stuff isn't meant for me were a first.
The Lands Between was rife with the spirits of those unable to pass on, many of whom once wielded respectable power and skill. Even if he did not see himself as Torrent's master, to turn down a tool like the Spirit Calling Bell as he had was not something she'd expected. His choice in phrasing might not have been noble, but it was the nature of the words that were worth respect.
He'd been offered a degree of control over the very souls of others and rejected without a second thought.
Blaidd was right to call him unique.
He and the woman who'd slumbered in his lap. Ranni had made no aggressive motions towards them but for her sorcery to not so much as waken or cause a shiver? The woman possessed powers similar to that of the Finger Maidens, but it'd been made abundantly clear that it went far beyond that.
And there was that glint in his dark eyes at times. A glint that could not be likened to anything she had experience with.
Ranni opened her eyes as she reformed along the edge of a craggy cliff, the invasive light of the Erdtree blocked out by the figure looming only a small distance away, their sights focused far ahead.
"Was it him?"
"I can not be certain." Ranni admitted, a small measure of frost gathered around her. "But this Onyx possesses a unique power."
"Onyx…" The name was tested in a low grumble that still managed to shake some of the loose rocks around them. She had her fair share of experiences with dragons, both the ancient ones and their lesser descendants, but the gulf of power that existed between the two was truly a thing to behold. All the same, powerful as they were, ancient dragons were few in number.
Which made it all the more intriguing that one had taken to observing Onyx. The only one willing to exchange words with her at that.
"Should thee approach, I ask that thou refrains from killing him." Ranni said. "Should another reveal themselves as the source of that power, there remains much he may yet change here."
"I am not like you." The grumble intensified, lose rocks falling over the cliff's edge as the shadow cast by her massive form lengthened. "I'll not carry out pointless murder in the name of reckless ambition."
Yes, Lansseax alone might have been one of the only among her kind willing to entertain conversation and a tentative understanding so long as their respective goals did not put them at odds, but that did not mean she lacked the same rage as all the others.
There were some sins that time could never do away with.
"As you say." Ranni said, her voice but a whisper on the wind as her frost gathered around her once more. She knew better than to test Lansseax's restraint. A battle between them would serve no purpose.
Whatever her interest in Onyx, it must've been deep seeded. Their brief exchange would not have happened otherwise.
XOXO
(A/N: This one goes out Anis_Le_king, my goat. Been chipping away at this story every time you mention it to me. Not sure I'm ready to fully update consistently but with how steady I've been writing I'll be trying. Don't expect any kind of schedule with this until I say so. I will be making a careful attempt to integrate it into my current schedule though.
Either way, hope you and anyone else who still bothers to read this despite how long its been, enjoy it.)