Marika
Torrent neighed lightly as she fed the beautiful steed a fresh apple. Part of a few gifts that the scholars who retained their faculties gave the duo when they had shown to be allies now of both Caria and the scholars themselves. It had taken a bit of finagling on the part of Melina, but speechcraft had thankfully calmed the sorcerers and allowed them access to a few of the libraries all over the academy.
This had endlessly excited her knight who took off when the news came, but she feared there was more to it than just an appetite for knowledge. Something had changed when her knight had come out of the illusory spell that had kept her out of the fight with Rennala. She seemed troubled, yet hid it with that goofy smile. She hoped deep down that her knight could overcome it.
She wasn't sure what she had seen, but a few of the scholars had said the illusion was intended to trap someone who entered with malicious intent, and slowly remake them by striking at their own sufferings. A trauma-attacking spell intended to turn an assailant into a willing sacrifice for Rennala's terrible cycle. Even after they had spoken, Rennala had once more faded into her semi-comatose state. Perhaps Marika had been host to the last vestiges of Rennala's sanity. She hoped that wasn't true.
"There, there. Enjoy it. We still have a ways to go." Softly petting Torrent's mane as she sighed. The feeling of the gentle breeze of her face as she looked out over the balcony with Torrent that saw near all of Liurnia's lake. It was a truly beautiful sight that almost seemed tainted now by the faint golden glow of the Erdtree in the periphery. She had never thought of it as harming a view yet now its glow seemed to tint the perfect blues unjustly.
Torrent gently bumped her with his snout as her mind began to drift, bringing a light smile to the gilded Queen's face. "Loyal one, aren't you?" Chuckling as she softly stroked his snout. "Well, we couldn't have asked for a better steed."
"He is a fine horse, indeed." Spoke the little candle as her form solidified beside her mother.
"None finer." The queen smiled at Melina.
"Thank, then, Lady Ranni. It was her wisdom that caught the steed's whistle and passed it along to thee. I was but a simple carrier and messenger." Melina stated
"You sell yourself far too short." The queen retorted.
"Do I, Mother?"
Both stopped quietly with Melina's eyes on the thoughtful goddess. She slowly turned, smiling at Melina.
"Yes. You are so much more than just a flickering fire in the breeze." A gentle hand touched the ghostly cheek and soothed a small amount of sorrow in the little candle's heart.
"Was I not born for but one purpose, Mother?" She asked, even as her cheek leaned into her long distant mother's palm.
"Maybe, in another life. But.. this is another chance. For all of us. You included, my sweet Melina." She brushed the candles's cheek just as a tear spilled over from her open eye before it closed, letting the feelings of comfort begin to overwhelm her. She had always hoped, but never dared to dream of this. Her prayers at last answered as her mother, who she had by now thought had seen her as a tool, was holding her cheek as tenderly as if she were still in the cradle.
The feeling was in equal measure blissful and heartbreaking. Melina knew where their journey's end lay, at the foot of the Erdtree. She would have to burn it. She would burn. Yet this moment where she was assured by the very person who had given her that order that it was no longer an order. It was a choice now.
A choice she would make when the time came.
"I am sorry..." She whispered into her mother's hand with a soft sniffle.
"I forgive you." She stroked her cheek tenderly. "You have been strong for too long." And so she wept, diving into the opening and then clutching arms of Marika as tears began to fervently spill. She felt so hot for the first time. It was so warm in a way she had never dreamed. Warm without pain, caressing without being crushed. Soft, without being a lie. She felt herself slowly fading in her mother's arms as the sorrow spilled out of her newly moistened eye, and she left the world of waking to rest like never she had.
'You do not deserve this.'
Marika felt him bite, but it fell on deaf ears. She cradled her child like she should have to all of them, and loved her. Even if only for the time they had, she would not let Melina leave this world afraid anymore. She had been afraid for so long. Her children had suffered enough for her own sins.
'You cannot save them!' He shrieked as stone hands cracked against golden bars to no avail.
'I must.'
Ranni
She watched over the spell as it twisted and gnarled at the mind of the knight. She saw things that were so strange and unnatural. A whirling machine that sliced only foliage along the ground. A man who wore the most bizarre of clothes and spoke to a strange boy that almost sounded like the knight.
It brought countless questions to who these people were and what connection they had to the snow witch's new fascination. Especially the final illusion where a radiant figure had somehow calmed the knight. It was a beautiful memory that her spell had unwittingly given form.
The lands each vision appeared in also seemed to be questionably bizarre. Rows of brick housing lined with short foliage in their front paths and rock walkways that led to black streets that seemed oddly sparse of carriages and full of strange metallic objects that circled its edges.
That memory kept coming back as she watched this bizarre duo. A heavy set boy, perhaps in his later teen years, and a middle aged scruffy man who seemed resentful of him. Even antagonistic. Just the expression the boy had made at his voice told her so many agonies that never had to be spoken, yet it raised far more questions. Why was this an illusion, and who were these two the knight saw? Where had she gone during that vision?
That was when it dawned on the snowy witch. The boy was the knight. That seemed impossible as they looked so vastly different, and yet she knew it to be true when she watched the eyes of the boy in the illusion. Gentle blues with flex of gold that seemed almost like a human form of the bizarre, magically glowing eyes that the knight had. As if bereft of their magic, left only to the blood on their veins.
What had she done to change so drastically? Moreover, why had the snowy witch begun to feel this tugging at the edges of her soul since the moment this knight had arrived? It was as if memories she had lost were trying to carve their way back through a barrier she had not even realized was erected. She recalled a report by Melina that the knight had seemed to lose some things when she had first arrived, even potentially memories due to conversations she had overheard between the knight and goddess.
It had given Ranni rise to theories that this was more than just a random outsider. The fact they rode with Marika herself as a companion who seemed to grow less divine and more human every day seemed to feed into that idea. She puzzled over the possibilities as the illusions played, and she began to piece together theories and ideas into concrete potential.
Was this Marika's trial? That was what came to Ranni's thoughts before all else. Was everything playing out now a trial by some force equal, or dare she guess, beyond those she had ever researched? A judgement of her character? What role did the knight play then? Was she simply the guardian, leading the accused through their trial, or was she also on trial? No, she could assume that much wasn't true. The knight seemed far too free spirited at times. It even began to seem like a true adventure to her, and that thought brought a small chuckle to the soul of the snow witch, that she knew not the source of.
Perhaps this knight had not been the only one who had been scrubbed of their thoughts to prepare for this strangest of circumstances. There were still too many pieces, however, that she missed. Like a puzzle that had its edges and its entire right half yet lacked nearly the entirety of its left.
She would still get her answers. She simply had to be patient, and the snow witch had grown accustomed to patience. She traced a doll's hand over the orb that displayed the vision of her spell. How her curiosity had begun to burn. This knight had opened up some intriguing doors that she was eager to find out where they led.