The air bit across Marika's cheek as she dashes across the marshy field, circling the beast. A strange and violently flailing skeletal bird that plumed goats of icy darkened flames from its beak and the twisted iron-like cudgel it wielded. Its body was blackened and grey with time and age, yet moved with the malice of a living thing all the same.
"Duck!" Shouted her new companion as the beast slammed its burning cudgel at Marika, leaving a trail of freezing flame as she swept up with her hammer and unleashed a wave of golden light. The beastly avian stumbled back, but some strange rune in its chest devoured her light. It resembled the brand of an erdtree, but not the one she knew.
"What in...?" The bird didn't offer time for further questions as it charged and swung down on Marika angrily. She caught the cudget, grunting in pain as its flame froze the tips of her fingers and buckled her muscles to hold it back.
A lash of flame tore into the creature's arm and made from Marika's newest ally, Cinder. Her right arm seared with a dark fire that seemed to fill Marika with a strange familiarity. One that rung of a distant, chaotic place where demons were born of trees.
"Focus." She barked at Marika as she dodged a blast of freezing flames that tore at the ground where she stood. "Kimisa!"
"It is blocking me somehow." Their third was standing at a distance, banging against a dome of light that blocked out the small woman. She hissed anytime she got closer herself, as if it burned her. This had to be Miquella's doing. He was the only one now who could be using such holy power this way.
But... why?
"Marika!" She caught Cinder's voice just as the creature slammed her with the end of its wing. She grunted at first before getting a hard grip and slamming herself, and the wing, back down with thunderous force. She roared angrily as her hammer came down with a sickening crack, shattering the wing as Cinder landed on top of it and speared her arm into its torso. Within seconds, the rune shattered and fire soread across it like the bursting roots of a tree. Cinder walked off its body and stepped off just as its torso turned into crumbling ashes.
"We make a good team." Marika said confidently as she walked over.
"You are distracted." Her voice was sharp.
"... This is the work of... My son."
"... I see." Her tone softened just a little. "I- "
They all heard the loud clank as a dozen hooked cudgels caught onto the nearby cliff edge that oversaw the heavy abyss below.
"..."
"..."
Both ladies felt themselves sweat a little harder as twelve more of those ragged and decayed avoan horrors climbed their way up and into view, followed by an orchestra of screeching caws
"Fuck."
"Me."
The two said in unison. They shared a little smirk at one another.
"Okay. I see why Lunie's inta you."
"Lunie?"
"Nicknames." She slowly brushed the hair from out of the way of her left eye socket as an eye of palish blue ice formed, along with a new arm that closer resembled the ragged claw of a puppet, ending in five icy talons. Her right side soon crackled like magma, blistering up her right arm until it more closely resembled a fluid of liquid hot iron holding the shape of flesh. Her temples began to crackle, growing two sharp and draconic horns, though the left one was broken near the base. Her right eye had turned entirely black, however.
"Just... what are you...?"
"A sister of hers. In a way." She tore off the sleeve that covered her formerly missing arm, and Marika spotted a mark across her back that reminded her of one she had seen on Luna when they had been intimate.
00.0000.010
The Darkened Soul.
"Leave them to me." Cinder flexed her fingers as the small horde charged towards her.
"That power... it isn't your own..."
"A gift. From a world long DEAD!" The darkened woman roared as the entirety of the cavern became consumed in utter darkness. Not merely a loss of sight, but a loss of all sensation ever so brief.
There was a spark for but a moment in the darkness that Marila could catch before a great cacophony of screaming birds tore through the darkness as a massive pillar of flame ripped upward. It burst over and over as each bird was snatched up in the searing flames and dragged by icy claws into the vortex, no matter how they struggled. The flame burned so bright that all else inside seemed to be darkened even further in its presence, and Cinder stood in its center as she roared like a woman possessed.
Seconds later, the vortex and the darkness dissipated. All that was left were ashes and a collapsing Cinder as she fainted. Kimisa was by her side instantly as whatever power Miquella had here died with the birds.
"You overdid it again." She said flatly as she slipped Cinder over her shoulder. The girl simply returned to the one armed stranger Marika had met again.
"Just what are you two?" Marika asked as she helped, slinging Cinder over her own shoulder with ease. Kimi raised a brow at that but kept whatever comment to herself.
"Demons."
"Excuse me?!"
"Actual demons. Not whatever fabricated and twisted thing this world had decided to brand with my people's title. I am from Lilium, the plane of Love." Marika quirked a brow now. "Love has many forms." She retorted.
"Clearly." She chuckled, reminded of her knight's rather puppy like energy at times.
"Cinder is from Aratha. Passion. She was born in the late kingdom of Arntha."
"Late?" She asked softly as she looked at Kimisa.
"... Well. That is her story to tell."
"And the mark she has in common with my lover?" When Marika called Luna that, it seemed to bring the tiniest smile to her lips.
"Also her story, but one even grimmer."
"You sound like a pained people."
"We are a home of the wretched and hurt. Welcome to that."
"Well, not wretched." She chuckled humorously. Kimisa seemed to enjoy that. This would be an enioyable journey.