Luna
The knight grumbled to herself quietly as she them watched the patrol. Most of the rabble had been rempbed, but far above the great stone stairwell leading to the fields of Leyndell were a pair of mounted and very heavily armored knights.
The knight had a begrudging knowledge of these very kinda of knights. One of them had done much to impede her initial path to Marika until she ended up losing her patience and using the few relics she had brought. It had cost hwr in the short term, but she felt it had ensured she was more attuned to these lands.
She sighed slightly. It had been ages since that fight, and she was vastly stronger. However, there were two of these bastards this time around, and they seemed less aged in their armor than the first one.
Her thumb grazed along the hilt of her Moonveil before moving to the handle of her newest weapon, Linebreaker mk II. She hadn't told anyone that, nor did she suspect the scythe would survive the trip. Its big brother sat on the hip of her beloved Amelia back home, but he would serve her well.
She took the surroundings in for a few moments. The stones were pale yellow and numerous, leading in a heavy stairwell towards a truly massive gate that held the only door she could see along a massive wall for quite a while. She admired the stonework and sheer scale, planning to ask her queen what it was made of another time.
Marika had left to scout some things now that they had gotten to Leyndell, and she figured there were memories in these lands left to be shared when her lover was ready. She had learned painfully why to not force someone to share with her wife years ago. She wouldn't hurt anyone that way again.
She stood up slowly, rolling a single dagger between two fingers. Perhaps she could instigate them one at a time. Not everything here kept its faculties enough to be as aware as they should have been. It was risky, but Marika had blessed their nearest grace. So, experimentation was healthy. Right?
She fully emerged from the small stone cover she had taken and hurled the small blade at the nearer of the two knights. Grandiose golden armor with a helmet resembling root woven cage wires and topped by a great bird. Their horses were equally armored, and both held massive circular shields and great axes that could easily have used a tree trunk for their handles.
The dagger struck the one right between the joints of the ankle in its reign, pinning the foot against the armor on his horse and causing a loud shout. The knight quickly grabbed his axe in an offensive stance as he directed his great steed toward the source as the knight whistled at him while stepping back slowly.
"That's right, you overbedazzled show pony! Come and get- OH." The knight began to shout before diving away as the horse and rider both actually leaped into the air slightly before smashing his shield into the stonework she had been perched by. It shattered as easily as glass.
The knight took off. Torrent was with her lover, so it was all cardio for the knight. The mounted warrior was quick to pursue, charging with quaking hoofsteps against cracking yellow bricks and stone as light footsteps hurriedly rush away.
The knight hoped the other hadn't been alerted, and she hadn't heard any sign of other steps just yet. It's a good sign. She turned after around two hundred meters with a sudden slash of Moonveil that sent a blue wave of sharp moonlight towards the charging warrior.
It faded and melted across the now visibly blessed armor of the horse's legs. ".." Before that axe whacked the knight in a manner closet describable to a golf club hitting a ball.
She landed with a painful, bloody crack against a tree. A low groan of thanks that she survived the blow and a double swig of tears got her right back and ready. She would need to be as she saw her attacked charging for her already. "Fuckin horse armor..." as she ripped herself from the bent around tree. Sheathing Moonveil and drawing the fearsome looking scythe, she knew she had to change tactics. This armor couldn't just be bypassed with magic. It had to be pierced. Linebreaker was built just for that task.
Leaping from the broken tree, she landed as the scythe unfurled to full size with a loud metal series of clicks. Her remaining hand gripped to the weapon tightly in her remaining arm. "Bring on thy cowardly charge!" She shouted at the warrior as his horse neighed angrily. She leaped over the crashing animal as it rammed into the remains of the tree as she slashed very targettedly at the head of the knight. Linebreaker's tip arched and adjusted with the swing. It caught the eye of the helmet, taking out an eye and wrenching it from their head as she rolled across the ground and back to her feet.
The warrior angrily shouter, a hand dropping his axe as it gripped to his bleeding face. A burning pulse seared shut the wound with pure light before he once more hefted his axe. Turning his steed to the little knight, he snarled violently at the audacity. With a heft of his axe next to the sky, the knight gulped and began a few steps back before the axe was suddenly beaming with light. Golden holy light.
A power she was secretly weak against.
She dove beneath the horse as the warrior slammed down the glowing axe as it tore through the stone with heat and light aplenty. She managed while rolling to wrap the chain of her blade around one leg of the horse and give it a yank. The steed simply yanked back, shattering the chain and sending the knight stumbling back just as the warrior dragged his axe around the ground and into an upward arcing swing at the knight.
The knight breathed softly. She knew that this was getting to a point that simple tricks and cleverness would not prevail. With a resigned sigh, the knight closed her eyes as the axe closed in and let in the storm. Her eyes opened to a glow of glaciers.
...
Marika
She gently began to dismount Torrent as they arrived at where she had sought out just after all the chaos. She had already heard a couple of scouts and guards whispering and calling the event the Fracturing on her way here.
She looked up to the broken remains of an old church. Mixed bricks and alabaster once stained gold were either crumbled or now long bleached white by the days. The remaining walls glowed with a soft growing moss that steadily ate the light emitted by the erdtree in the center. A minor tree, still alive by a thread.
She padded across the grass covered church as she breathed deeply. She took in feeling these hallowed places had and filled her with such a sense of safety. Now, that feeling of holy presence felt as much like prison walls as the urn had millennia ago. She hugged herself gently, feelings beginning to overwhelm her. Tears peeked out, and she began to weep.
"Why..." she choked out quietly as she knelt before the minor tree her own hands had planted centuries before. "Why have you left me? Why have you abandoned me?" She choked out through sobs at the tree. Her words were directed at the Greater Will. She felt so confused. Betrayed. Used. She felt just as manipulated by the Greater Will as the hornsent had to her sisters. Traps, lures, marriage proposals, and promises of better lives bad steadily ripped away every shaman she had ever known. She had thought she was stronger. She had been better. They only took hold of her through violence.
Yet her master simply used a greater jar. The feeling of it all finally hitting and being admitted was world shattering as tears and weeping cries began to echo further in this hallowed place. It could have been minutes, or it could have been hours. She neither knew nor cared.
When Marika at last dried her now sore face and stood, she allowed the hood to finally fall from her face. The scarf remained, yet she drew the hunting dagger out from her robes. A hand idly stroked the steel that Luna had ensured she had. A buck knife she had called it. Sturdy and reliable, but best suited for utility.
She stared at her own reflection quietly. A flash of red caught her eye, and she shook for a moment. She wished she could share that pain. The haunting feeling of even ones own mind being unfree. "Great mother... How I lost my way.." she spoke with a soft reverence that had her slowly turn the knife over in her hand. She considered a grim moment. It would take just one motion to end her pain now. A single cut, and all of her misery came to an end.
Her grip tightened on the handle before a hand slowly tied the scarf on tighter. She savored the softness of her lover's gift on her fingers. She moved her hand then to lift the golden braid of hair it usually concealed. She looked beyond the tree now to the one she once had followed. "Forgive me..." she stared at the knife and raised it slowly. Tears poored down her cheeks. Her face was hot. It all hurt so badly. The edge of that steel glimmered so invitingly... yet she refused.
Lowering the blade shakily before it just fell from her quaking grip into the grass while both hands cupped her face. In that moment, she felt weaker than she ever had. She had truly fallen so far. Demigods and countries bent the knee to her once, and now she could not even forge the courage to end her own suffering.
"It is not weakness." She heard something whisper. She shot her head up and looked around. It was a voice she had not heard since her home. The Great Mother.
"Y-you..." she looked slowly at the tree as a figure seemed to form from the shape of its bark. A motherly figure who held her arms out like a seeking embrace.
"You have stumbled for so long, my child. It is not a weakness to seek rest, but the roots have dug themselves too deep." The figure spoke without words. Each a feeling that pulses into Marika like an echoing feeling being shared to her.
"I do not know if I can... all who stand by me grow hurt..." Strong arms tightened around herself as Marika wept. Struggling and battling against this pain. "As if my existence has become a curse... my children.. now ... now even the woman I love... she has lost her arm.. she may.. may even lose others she loves because of my selfishness!" She shouted as her head lifted again. Tears and fury welled up behind her eyes.
"Then what can you do now to change it?" The figure asked gently. Marika was disarmed by that. A quiet took over her as her arms fell down to her sides.
"I.. I suspect I am with child great Mother... her child..." She admitted meakly.
There was a pause. Perhaps confusion at the words used. "Then this is your chance."
Marika was taken aback. "What...?"
"A final gift to thy womb to prove thee a worthy mother, at last. May you raise him with as much love as your knight." The figure's words rattled deep within Marika as her mind quickly spun with the implications.
"Him..?" She asked, too stunned to hear such a definitive confirmation.
"Do not raise him as a God, My Child." The figure began to fade.
"No.. no Great mother w-wait, I have so many questions!" Reaching toward the tree figure.
"Let love be your guide, my child." As it fully vanished again.
She sat there in the grass and stared at the Minor Erdtree with a hand over her stomach. Most would have broken then.
Marika simply stood as she gripped a little firmer to her stomach. Eyes glowed now with a different gold. Like flowing liquid, raw and impure as in nature, yet gorgeous and striking. She would serve her Great Mother again.