Luna
Quietly breathing as the knight laid a fresh cloth across Marika's forehead, she watched her queen with a somber look. She was safe, and it seemed that their child was as well. That much seemed clear. Still, she had not awoken yet, and she knew it was likely a battle of her own memories. Whatever the Erdtree had done likely scarred her gilded lover and stuck her to fight back demons she long sealed away.
A hand lightly brushed a few strands of hair from her face as she checked the pillow beneath her. The silken sheets were comfortable enough.
"Can't get through I'm afraid." She heard Blaidd say as he approached the chambers through the black curtains Luna had installed.
"Nothing?" Blaidd thought about all the things he had tried. Rot pots, bombs, his sword, his teeth, even angry and mean words. He wasn't too fond of that. Not even begging had worked, and that always worked when he used his pout.
"Nothing. The roots are stubborn. I think we may need a flame of some sort, something potent. More potent than just incantations or alchemics can produce." He sighed sadly, ashamed at his failure. He was quickly assured though by the empathetic knight
"Hey, we will find a way. Once Marika wakes, we will find Ranni and Melin -"
"Oh!!! I know where they are!"
"You do??"
"Ya!! I'll go get em! You watch my kid okay?! Bye!" As he took off through the curtains.
"... Your what." She heard a soft yawn as a little blind redhead with far more scars than Luna's heart could handle walked in through the opposite side. Her hair was absolutely frizzed and messy. The sight mixed the knight with both humor and sorrow.
"You must be brother's daughter." She said gently, standing and gently approaching her.
"Uh huh. I's Malli.." she said before giving a long yawn.
"Well it seems you'll be spending some time with your aunts. That alright sweetheart?"
"Can i has candies?"
"I'll be sure to make some from our foraging trips."
"Yay!" She clapped happily. "I gotsa get my bwushes!" She hopped up again and ran as fast as her cute little legs could carry her to the other room, rushing back soon with a small bundle of paint tin, papers, and brushes Blaidd clearly made from his own furs after a long bath.
"Wow, you paint?"
"Uh huh!"
"That's really impressive." Especially she considered for a blind girl.
"Papa says it weally pwetty too. I just wet my hands move wiff whats in my head!" She happily said, soon setting some papers down on the floor and beginning to randomly paint.
The knight smiled warmly, looking back at the sleeping Marika. For a time, they could enjoy this peace. Marika had certainly earned it. She only hoped her queen would wake soon enough to savor it before they were once more tasked to search.
...
Morgott
A few of the cultists quietly walked along the heavy soaked path towards the hidden temple. Long trails of bodies that seeped red seemingly endlessly as the changing of prayer could be heard in the distance. The underground cavern, once enchanted like a night sky, now resembled an endless bleeding star line. A heavy fog hazed the upper cavern as well, and occasionally choked the air below.
Broken chapels repurposed into shrines dotted the area, and poor numen sat in quiet guard along the road. Rejected and unwanted by the golden order. They sought some kind of safety here. The bodies around them suggested they had again been fooled.
He could hear his brother's chanting voice on the wind as he leaned up a bit from his stalagtite perch. Gulping silently as he slowly found the shattered chapel where Mohg was. He was sat quietly before a large cocoon that seemed woven from sinew out of what must have been hundreds, perhaps even thousands of bodies. The mere sight made the horned man want to retch.
"What have you become... What happened to you..." He muttered to himself in horror as his gnarled horned twin stroked a withered hand that peeked from the edge of the cocoon with only a wedding ring to be seen. What horrible spouse of unholy nature had he sought union with?
Morgott watched for a little longer, before deciding to depart. There was too much to do to linger much longer. He needed information, and he doubted Mohg would horde any of a nature he needed. So he would take to one place he had hoped to never visit.
It was time he paid Rykard a visit.
...
There was a skittering around the long dried out base of the Haligtree. Once, a shining potential succesor to the Erdtree, it was a bubbling husk now of rotted branches and wild growing fungi. The Rot had found its home here.
Or so they had thought.
A priest of these skittering creatures had noticed the silence had grown long and heavy in the lower chambers where they future goddess lay. Descending through the hidden depths, the many kegged creature hissed silently at the frustration of such tasks. Long and centipede like with grey coloring and a strange humanoid shape only in a few select limbs, their image was a horrifying one to most of the order.
Skittering down the stone steps that were covered in strange alien roots and long dead pieces of the Haligtree, he was a little jarred to hear the sound of fighting down below. He moved quicker as he had not heard nor seen any sign of a Tarnished entering the hidden place.
He stepped through the hidden archway illuminated by ever burning candles to have all of his eyes shredded the instant he entered. A pulse of radiating light that tore apart him cell by cell as his last sight was their goddess Malenia, bent over in the water with a spear through her chest. She was still, and her helmet had laid in the still rippling water in front of her.
A motherly smile gently formed amid the blinding white flames before fading with them as only armor and unalloyed gold remained behind.
...
Melina
"So, you will not eat onion."
Ranni shook her head. "No."
"Oh come on!" Melina countered.
"These wild onions are just too bitter, Candle."
Melina blushed softly at the petname she had begun to call her. She had started to speak again when they both heard soft steps in the very light snow their camp thankfully had due to being on the plateau.
Both women looked up to the shocking sight of a beautiful woman dressed all in black. Melina felt her heart nearly jump out of her throat, and for a few moments she felt a terrible guilt.
That guilt faded when she glanced at Ranni and saw as heavy a blush on her face as her own. Maybe...
Dispelling the thought and rising, she rushed over to Fia. The woman embraced her, breathing a little shakily from the bitter cold she likely was unaccustomed to. Cold tombs and dead air was a different chill than constant snow and ice.
"What are you doing here??"
"I do not know... When the Great Fissure formed... I thought I had..."
"You..."
"Whatever blessing it is, I am here. Who is, this?" Motioning to the redhead nearby.
Ranni stood and approached Fia, extending a hand slowly. "Moon Princess Ranni." Melina braced, knowing that many would be less than fond of her.
Fia simply smiled gently, and took her hand. The three felt a warmth fold across them and ease the tension that had threatened to bubble over briefly.
...
"It is in the moments of peace that gold is least precious. Only during War does its value shine."
Writings of the dark fox.