Her eyes opened slowly into darkness. The Knight felt her head burn painfully as she groaned against the soil. She was somewhere new. The ground felt soft and pliable beneath her fingers. Her armor was gone, only basic wrappings she often wore beneath. "They must have been.. treating me..." She muttered slowly as she fought the burning fog still clouding her brain. Most of the locks were back, but her fingertips felt too strong again. She considered that as she slowly took in her surroundings.
"Two eyes again... good..." She muttered as she blinked away the remaining exhaustion and found a form pressed against her chest. Fia, sleeping quietly against her. Her fingers looked raw. She must have been working on the knight's care. The thought brought a smile to the Knight's face. She was unconscious, but she was still breathing, and her cheeks had color. The moonlit heroine couldn't smell any blood aside from specs of her own, either. "Good..." She sighed and laid her head back down for a moment before starting to rise with Fia held against her.
All around them were gravestones. Strange gravestones. They were spectral and ephemeral, glistening more with the soul of the dead than rock and stone. It disturbed the knight deeply. Her eyes drifted as the smell of bodies burning struck her, and she caught a massive figure in the distance. A figure made of wicker, corpses, and flame, as tall as a castle. The place was... ethereal. The land was abundant with flowers that fluttered in a breeze against long stalks of what could be called wheat if one knew a strain of wheat that was slightly translucent.
"This is an afterlife realm..." She whispered quietly as she began to rise with Fia stirring against her.
"Mmm.. after... life...?" Her soft voice spoke as she began to right herself. The knight set her down, dusting off her black robes.
"A place of the dead, or perhaps..." Her gaze stretched distantly across shattered ruins in the distance with golden archways leading toward some heavenly thing to the north. The east only saw more hillsides, but there was a road that she could follow that led to a distant bridge.
"The people, or the gods." Luna muttered to Fia as she felt Torrent's snout bump and lift her hand. "Good..." She turned and held her forehead to the steed, smiling for a moment.
"I say the people." Fia answered, and the knight's smile broadened.
"Then let's get started east." She turned and began scrounging whatever semblance of their equipment was left. It wasn't much, but she did recover the red tear flask and her satchel. Armor could be pilfered from the first foe with a style she enjoyed along with their weapon.
"Are... Are you sure? You only seemed to have recovered, and we have no clue where we are." Fia grasped the knight's arm tenderly, though her face was tight with concern. "You are not even armed anymore." It was then that her eyes noticed a strange mark obscured by the bandages, but she could make out the bottom half of a few words.
"The... Epitaph...?" She looked back up.
"Let's just say, I am the weapon. Like it or not, hehe." She gave this brimming smile, but Fia's heart still burned at the implication of such suffering. "Hey, don't worry about it."
"How can I know to trust you when someone else constructed you?"
"... I don't know." She stared at the deathbed companion quietly for a moment. Fia watched those terribly storming eyes for longer than she was sure to count.
"Then consider it a show of my faith." She patted the knight's firm chest. "Now. Help me onto Torrent." The knight chuckled and nearly launched Fia onto his back with shocking accuracy. A second later, she landed in front of her with their bags slung over her back.
"Let's get moving then, Lady Fia. Torrent!" A loud neigh tore across the dim and dark lands as the sky seemed to fill and swell with more clouds every single day. A moment later, hoovesteps clacking across muddy road as the two embarked toward this strange place.
...
A weak kind of awareness slowly came to Rellana's eyes. She was on a cave somewhere. It was dry, and she could smell a fire nearby. Her armor was propped against a wall nearby, or rather, what pieces of it remain. She heard a light snore nearby as her eyes turned towards the familiar sound.
There was Messmer. Laying beside her in the small bedroll. He had pilfered on their exit from the storage room. It was among the few things they had escaped with.
Her hand idly rested on his, tracing it quietly for a few moments. He must have taken her here after the siege. Her eyes widened further when she noticed that his other shoulder was wrapped entirely.
"Messmer..." She whispered quietly. "What did he do to you..." Miquella had sieged them. No, he had done worse. He had imprisoned Messmer for months and tortured the secrets of this place out of him, but when they escaped, she had thought that had been the end. She had fainted from her own injuries fighting her way to him, and she wasn't even sure how long she had been out of it.
"Three weeks." He muttered between clearing his throat and adjusting so their hands were laced.
"Reading my mind now, are you?" She whispered back, though she couldn't hide all the concern in her voice.
"Like a book." He chuckled back softly.
"Where are we?"
"The cave of Solitude. It's a safe place for now."
"No, Messmer... Where. Are we..?" She squeezed his hand.
He thought for a moment of what they would do now. He had no army. No arms. No route to undoing this loss. This... failure... but one.
"We need to find Mother. She can stop him." He moved his remaining arm from her hand and snaked it around her shoulders to pull her into him. He tucked her head beneath his chin as she gave a calming breath. "She will be displeased, but... It is our only hope."
"A fool's hope... But it is better than hopelessness." She rested her head close and took a moment to focus on the sound of his heart. It was so... Uneven tonight.
"Indeed. Better than nothing at all." His eyes burned quietly as he stroked her hair and schemed.